Red River Romp

Sooners Crush Texas in Cotton Bowl

by: Jason Waganer

October 8, 2000

 

Dallas, Texas -- The faces of the more than 40,000 Sooner fans in the Cotton Bowl Saturday afternoon looked stunned. They couldn't believe what their beloved team was doing to its archrival Texas. At halftime, the 10th ranked Sooners (5-0) led the 11th ranked Longhorns (3-2) 42-7.

 

"This is totally unbelievable," said one Sooner fan during intermission. "If we continue to play this way for the rest of the season, no one will beat us!" 

 

The Sooners won the game on the ground. They won it in the air. And they won in on defense and special teams. The Sooners totally dominated the the Longhorns in every possible way.

 

In the first half, the Sooners scored on six of its first seven possessions (the first half ended on the seventh possession). The Sooner defense also scored in the first half when OU superstar linebacker Rocky Calmus returned a Chris Simms interception 41 yards for a touchdown.

 

The Sooners 42 points in the first half were two shy of what the Longhorns had allowed totally in their first four games. And the second half didn't get any better.

 

The Sooners only punt came on its first drive of the second half. However, the Longhorns couldn't capitalize as they once again turned the ball over. Then the Sooners quickly scored again, to go ahead 49-7 with 13:53 to go in the third quarter.

 

The Sooners scored twice more in the game, both by sophomore running back Quentin Griffin who broke the Sooner record for most touchdowns in one game with six.

 

Sooners coach Bob Stoops said the goal this week was to get ahead and not lose the lead again. Last year, the Sooners jumped to a quick 17-0 lead over the Longhorns, but lost 38-28.

 

"Our game plan was to get off fast, hold the lead and play a full 60 minutes," said Stoops. "This says a lot about the program. What a difference a year makes."

 

OU star quarterback Josh Heupel, who was 17-27 for 275 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions, was happy with the Sooners' performance.

 

"People came from across the country and we wanted to represent this university, this state and this football team extremely well," said Heupel.

 

Longhorn Head Coach Mac Brown, understandable was extremely upset with the game's outcome.

 

"I want to apologize to all of the Texas fans, our players and assistant coaches," said Texas coach Mack Brown. "You can't play that poorly and have a head coach do anything right during the week."

The Longhorns ran for a school-record-low minus-7 yards and allowed 534 yards, the most the Sooners have ever gained against them.

Texas players were confused from the start. Offensive and defensive linemen stood before every snap and pointed at Sooners to figure out who they were supposed to block -- yet they still didn't do a very good job of it.

"We would look like we were coming with a different defense than we were actually running," Calmus said. "The coaches did a great job preparing and disguising stuff for us."

 

 Much talked about Longhorn sophomore quarterback Chris Simms was 11-23 for 63 yards and once interception. "They kept scoring and we kept punting," said Simms.

 

Longhorn starting quarterback Major Applewhite was 9-18 for 98 yards, one touchdown and one interception.