ESPN Big 12 Blog

Posted by ESPN.com's Tim Griffin

Oklahoma wide receiver Manny Johnson remembers how eerily quiet Owen Field became at his first varsity football game.

TCU delivered a stunning 17-10 upset victory over the Sooners to start the 2005 season. And Johnson, a freshman who saw action in that game, can't shake the memory of being just as shocked as everybody else after the Horned Frogs' shocking upset.

"I came here expecting to win every game, going to national championship games, that kind of stuff," Johnson said. "You couldn't imagine something like that happening, especially at your first game. They came in and surprised us good. It was a bad day for us."

Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops recalls it just as clearly, befitting one of only two home losses during a collection of 58 games at Owen Field. And he hasn't hesitated in bringing those memories back up this week to his players in preparation for Saturday's game.

"Of course I'm going to remind our players," Stoops said. "TCU kicked our butt in 2005. That's plain and simple."

The No. 2 Sooners are hoping to guard against complacency in their final home tune-up before conference play begins next week. The spunky Horned Frogs are bringing a similarly talented team to Owen Field again that might be their best nonconference test the Sooners will face this season.

And TCU assuredly won't be intimidated by any aura of invincibility the Sooners may have. TCU has won 11 of its last 13 games against opponents from BCS schools and three of their last four games against the Sooners in Norman.

The Horned Frogs cracked the national polls for the first time this week using a similar recipe that has marked most of Gary Patterson's teams over the years. TCU leads the nation in total defense (183 YPG) and rushing defense (30.5 YPG), ranks sixth in scoring defense (7.8 PPG) and 15th in passing defense (152.5 YPG).

"They have a great, great defense," Stoops said, "[TCU coach Gary Patterson's] teams always are incredibly disciplined in how they play. You still see a lot of that for sure. They're pretty good."

In a way, the TCU game should prove to be a good test for the Sooners as they prepare for the Oct. 11 game against Texas that will be their first big test of the conference. And like many of those previous Texas games, the TCU game is coming with some off-the-field controversy as well. There have been hints in several newspapers that spying helped give the Horned Frogs an advantage in that 2005 game.

Several newspaper reports have linked TCU's last victory and the way that Stoops closed his scrimmages before the start of the season as being connected.

Patterson raised the subject after his team's victory against Stanford on Sept. 13 and later in an interview with the Dallas Morning News earlier this week. The 2005 Oklahoma spring game was televised and TCU coaches made a tape of the scrimmage that they used to scout the Sooners.

"As far as us watching their practices, I took a little bit of offense that they would think that I would have someone go and spy on their practices, because, absolutely, that did not happen," Patterson told the Morning News. "But did we watch the spring tapes as far as the spring game? We did, and I watched it all summer."

Stoops quashed that rationale earlier this week, saying he shut down his scrimmages during the preseason to allow his team to better implement its new no-huddle offense and having nothing to do with the TCU game.

"I don't know where that would come from," Stoops said. "That doesn't come from us.
I've made it very clear that when they beat us here, they out-toughed us, out-physicaled us, coached a lot better, because they had their players a whole lot better prepared than we did.
They executed better. They took care of the ball better. In every part of the game."

After three games, Stoops decision to shroud his practices couldn't be playing out much better.

The Sooners lead the nation in scoring (54.7 PPG) and are fourth in total offense (556.7 yards), crushing their first three opponents by an average of 41 points per game.

Quarterback Sam Bradford has emerged as a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate after completing nearly 80 percent of his passes this season, ranking second nationally in pass efficiency. Running backs Chris Brown and DeMarco Murray have combined to rush for 560 yards and seven touchdowns. The Sooners have piled up back-to-back games of 592 and 591 yards against Cincinnati and Washington.

That production has been accentuated by a maturity that separates this team from others that Stoops has coached. Bradford called for a players-only meeting two weeks ago before their game at Washington to help refocus the team's goals before its first road game.

"I don't know that we've had a lot of those," Stoops said. "And in the end, it was a positive thing. We've had really good leadership and not just from the captains, but from the juniors and seniors. There's a bunch of guys that are stepping up and taking accountability for leading the team. That's always a good thing."

Johnson said some of the current Sooners' early resolve has been shaped by some of their successes and failures. The Sooners have won unprecedented back-to-back Big 12 championships, but have lost four of their last five bowl games. Included in that streak have been embarrassing bowl losses to Boise State and West Virginia in the last two seasons.

"This team has been through a lot," Johnson said. "We've got a lot of juniors and seniors who want to accomplish something before we leave school. Everybody is hungry to do those things and there are no selfish guys around here."

And these Sooners say they won't overlook any opponent, particularly a team that has been as successful as TCU has been against them.

"There's no doubt that this is the most mature team I've ever played on," wide receiver Juaquin Iglesias said. "We're more settled and realize what we need to keep doing. It's not something that you can see, but you can just sense being around this group."