Sooners 
                Survive Scare and Defeat the Jayhawks 34-16

by: Jason Waganer

September 30, 2000

Norman, Okla. -- The Oklahoma Sooners "bend but don't break" defense did a lot of bending in the first half of Saturday's victory over Kansas. The Kansas offense moved the ball at will against Oklahoma's defense early, racking up 284 yards before halftime. However, in the second half the Sooner defense tightened up and held the Jayhawks to just 93 yards.

"You can keep up with total yards or this or that all you want, but the biggest statistic to me is your turnover ratio," Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said. "If you win that battle, you're usually going to come out on the better side of things."

Kansas turned the ball over seven times, six of them leading to Oklahoma scores, as the 14th ranked Sooners beat the Jayhawks 34-16.  Kansas's Dylen Smith threw five interceptions, and also fumbled once.

Sooner star QB Josh Heupel picked apart the nation's number one ranked passing defense. Coming into Saturday's game the Jayhawks were only allowing 84 passing yards per game. However, Heupel threw for 346 yards and a touchdown. He also ran for a score in the win.

"Coming into the game, we knew that they were going to be a good football team defensively and had a great secondary," Heupel said. "We took it as a challenge, but basically we went into it with the same attitude as every game. We just try to execute our stuff and if we do that, then we will be successful."

Perhaps caught looking ahead to next week's Red River showdown, Oklahoma fell behind, 16-10, in the second quarter. But the Sooners responded with 24 unanswered points to win going away.

"Nobody panicked," Stoops said. "Even in the first half, what we were doing was right. We just broke down and (their) quarterback had some big plays. The second half was better. We had more discipline and we covered better."

The Sooners were held to just 98 yards on the ground with Quenton Griffin rushing for 55 yards on 14 carries. But Oklahoma used the passing game and its defense to improve to 4-0 (1-0 in Big 12) for the first time since 1993.

"There are things during the game that didn't go our way and we had to show toughness and play well," Heupel said. "We needed this game today. We needed some tough times just to react and prepare for the rest of the conference season."

The Sooners should have plenty of time to react to tough times in the coming weeks. Next week the Sooners face Texas in Dallas. The Longhorns defeated Oklahoma State 42-7 in Austin on Saturday.

After Texas, the Sooners travel to Manhattan, Kan. to face the Kansas State Wildcats who crushed Colorado 44-21 Saturday. 

Two weeks after Kansas State, the Sooners will face the number one ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers. The Sooners haven't defeated Nebraska since 1989.