No. 4 Oklahoma jumps out to 50-0 lead to stomp out Chattanooga

 

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Top 25 Overview

It was over when... DeMarco Murray scored his second TD of the night to make it 28-0 in favor of the Sooners after one quarter. Gameball goes to... OU defense, which limited Chattanooga to just 36 yards of total offense (20 passing, 16 rushing). Stat of the game... 72. The only thing that stopped the OU attack was a lightning delay that extended the half by 72 minutes. Complete Top 25 Overview

Team Stat Comparison
1st Downs	2	27
Total Yards	36	487
Passing	20	305
Rushing	16	182
Penalties	7-44	5-42
3rd Down Conversions	0-16	6-13
4th Down Conversions	0-1	0-1
Turnovers	0	1
Possession	28:55	31:05

Air/Ground Leaders
Chattanooga Passing   C/ATT YDS TD INT Pastore 3/8 20 0 0 Gault 0/8 0 0 0	Oklahoma Passing   C/ATT YDS TD INT Bradford 17/22 183 2 0 Halzle 14/16 122 1 1
Chattanooga Rushing   CAR YDS TD LG Kermah 17 37 0 8 Wynn 10 8 0 4	Oklahoma Rushing   CAR YDS TD LG Murray 15 124 2 49 Brown 14 63 3 11
Chattanooga Receiving   REC YDS TD LG Hayes 1 9 0 8 Buckhalter 1 8 0 8	Oklahoma Receiving   REC YDS TD LG Johnson 9 120 1 31 Iglesias 4 73 1 36

Scoring Summary
FIRST QUARTER				CHAT	OKLA
	TD	10:42	Chris Brown 10 Yd Run (Jimmy Stevens Kick) Drive: 8 plays, 50 yds, 2:28	0	7
	TD	07:42	Demarco Murray 1 Yd Run (Jimmy Stevens Kick) Drive: 4 plays, 46 yds, 1:17	0	14
	TD	03:55	Quentin Chaney 3 Yd Pass From Sam Bradford (Pat Failed) Drive: 8 plays, 49 yds, 2:40	0	20
	TD	00:21	Demarco Murray 1 Yd Run (Jimmy Stevens Kick) Drive: 5 plays, 70 yds, 1:41	0	27
SECOND QUARTER				CHAT	OKLA
	SF	13:33	Ball Through End Zone	0	29
	TD	12:35	Chris Brown 9 Yd Run (Jimmy Stevens Kick) Drive: 3 plays, 19 yds, :41	0	36
	TD	06:53	Manuel Johnson 7 Yd Pass From Sam Bradford (Jimmy Stevens Kick) Drive: 11 plays, 71 yds, 3:12	0	43
	TD	04:17	Juaquin Iglesias 36 Yd Pass From Joey Halzle (Jimmy Stevens Kick) Drive: 3 plays, 50 yds, :52	0	50
THIRD QUARTER				CHAT	OKLA
	SF	13:15	Ball Through End Zone	2	50
	TD	01:52	Chris Brown 1 Yd Run (Jimmy Stevens Kick) Drive: 11 plays, 56 yds, 3:52	2	57

NORMAN, Okla. -- Maybe Mother Nature was trying to impose a mercy rule. The weather was the only thing that could slow down No. 4 Oklahoma against Chattanooga.

Sam Bradford threw for 183 yards and two touchdowns, Chris Brown ran for three scores and only an hourlong rainstorm could slow down the Sooners in a 57-2 victory against Chattanooga on Saturday night.

Fast Facts

•  With its 57-2 victory over Chattanooga, Oklahoma has won its last two season-opening games by a combined 136-12.

• Oklahoma led 50-0 at halftime, winning the yardage battle 343-to-10 and first downs 19-to-1.

•  Chattanooga, held to just 36 total yards, has lost 27 straight to FBS opponents. Its last win came in 1977.

-- ESPN Research

The Sooners converted their first seven possessions into touchdowns and led 50-0 before a thunderstorm caused a lightning delay that extended halftime by 1 hour and 12 minutes.

Instead of stopping the game, both teams went through a glorified scrimmage in the second half -- except one team was trying not to score.

"That's always a difficult situation in the second half when you're up 50-0 at halftime. You want your [backups] to move it but you don't want to be a bad guy and be throwing it all over the place and taking advantage of what's there," Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said. "You know, you do the best that you can."

Oklahoma seemed to be pulling back on the reins after reaching former coach Barry Switzer's proverbial "half a hundred," putting fullback Matt Clapp at tailback for the next series. Dominique Franks also called for a fair catch on what seemed to be a returnable punt.

But after halftime, Oklahoma's starters were back on the field -- even if their production level fell off sharply. They managed only two first downs on their first three drives before backups started filtering in.

Stoops said he decided the starters still needed to be sharp next week, no matter what the score was at the time.

"Those are all tough decisions. That's just the way it goes," Stoops said.

Bradford completed 17 of 22 passes, including a 3-yard score to Quentin Chaney and a 7-yard TD to Manuel Johnson on fade patterns. DeMarco Murray had a pair of 1-yard scoring runs, one of them following a 49-yard scamper, and finished with 124 yards on 15 carries.

Brown also had touchdown runs of 10 and 9 yards.

"It's the first time out this year, trying to kind of avenge a loss at the Fiesta Bowl last year, so there was a lot of preparation put in to come out and play well," said Bradford, referring to a 48-28 loss to West Virginia this January.

The Mocs scored their only points after Oklahoma's first drive of the second half, when punter Mike Knall tracked down a bad snap in the end zone and knocked it out of bounds for a safety.

Chattanooga coach Rodney Allison talked earlier this week about hoping to make it a game into the second half, like the Mocs did last year at Arkansas, and trying to avoid injuries. Neither one worked.

Tailback Erroll Wynn, who took the place of injured starter Bryan Fitzgerald, broke his wrist in the second quarter and starting quarterback Jare Gault came out with a stinger in the third quarter. Allison hopes both will be able to play next week.

Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione said there was never any talk of calling off the game at halftime, and both coaches favored going on with it.

"We have got a bunch of fighters ... ," Allison said. "A nice trait of ours is that our players have always played until the end of the game. They came back and played hard the whole game. From that standpoint, I was pleased."

All fans were asked to leave the seating area of Owen Field during halftime, although they were told that re-entering would not be allowed if they left the stadium.

A dozen or so remained in the student section, and others huddled under overhangs, in tunnels and on the concourse.

The rest left. They had seen enough already anyway.

Chattanooga, Oklahoma's first Championship Subdivision opponent since Stoops' debut in 1999, had only one first down, one completed pass and negative yardage on its first seven possessions.

The Mocs ended up with 36 yards, three completed passes and only one more first down.

"It was a great win for us but at the same time we can't beat our chests because it was just our first game," Franks said. "We've got a new opponent coming in the second week that we've got to get this game behind us."

After backup quarterback Joey Halzle's 36-yard touchdown pass to Iglesias made it a 50-point lead, Oklahoma's mascot ponies -- Boomer and Sooner -- weren't even sent onto the field with the Sooner Schooner for their usual celebration. Unlike all the first-half scores, no fireworks were set off after Brown's 1-yard TD run put Oklahoma up 57-2.

The Sooners ended up playing Chattanooga -- which after a 2-9 season was hardly a threat like fellow conference member Appalachian State, the three-time FCS champions -- after Middle Tennessee turned down an opportunity to be Oklahoma's season-opening foe.

After all, they'd been there before. They lost 59-0 in Norman two years ago.

"Everything isn't always perfect or how you want it to be," Stoops said. "You deal with it the best you can. ... I don't know that anyone's complained about our schedule over the years. We've played a fairly exciting schedule and have got some great games coming up.

"Every now and then you get caught in a situation that isn't the best. That's the way it goes."