Oklahoma’s quick start ends Frogs’ hopes early

NORMAN, Okla. — Payback, as it turns out, isn’t only hell.

It’s also a vengeful Oklahoma team, with the nation’s No. 1 ranking on the line.

Fire and brimstone, apparently, are optional.

The stakes, the tenor, the Sooners’ talent — it was all too hellacious for the TCU Horned Frogs on Saturday night, as the 35-10 pummeling convincingly attests.

Add in TCU coach Gary Patterson’s failed attempt at matching wits with the Sooners’ new no-huddle offense, and the rout was on.

Patterson blamed himself for causing confusion within his defense.

"I didn’t get some guys lined up in time," he said. "When I stopped being a 'guru,’ we played better."

In the first half alone, when Patterson was waging a losing chess match, Oklahoma struck for pass plays of 38, 24, 73 and 55 yards.

"You can’t give up big plays," Patterson lamented.

It didn’t help, either, that Oklahoma appeared to feel it had a score to settle. TCU had upset the Sooners in this same stadium three seasons ago.

Conspicuously, with less than 5 minutes to play Saturday and the Sooners comfortably in control by 25 points, Heisman Trophy candidate Sam Bradford was still in the game at quarterback, winging passes to OU’s starting receivers. Bradford didn’t leave the game until Oklahoma’s final four snaps, finishing with 411 yards passing and four touchdowns.

Nobody on the TCU side complained or even admitted that they noticed. The Frogs knew who and what they were up against.

Maybe they knew too much, Patterson suggested. For a team that’s no stranger to bowl games and has beaten Big 12 teams before, the Frogs appeared dumbstruck by OU’s rapid start.

Patterson accused his team of thinking that "you had to play better than you could in a big ball game."

His Frogs will learn, he said. But will Patterson?

To combat the Sooners’ no-huddle offense, Patterson tried to show Bradford a witch’s brew of 11th-hour blitzes and pass coverages. Alas, the ambitious attempt seemed to confuse the TCU secondary more than it did Bradford.

Three snaps into the game, Patterson sent his two inside linebackers on a blitz up the middle. Bradford calmly found tight end Jermaine Gresham on an apparent 66-yard touchdown play.

A penalty nullified the touchdown and put the ball on the TCU 38-yard line. But four plays later, Bradford faked a throw into the right flat, and suddenly there was receiver Juaquin Iglesias 10 yards behind the TCU secondary.

"He made some really good deep throws," TCU linebacker Jason Phillips said. "I think they caught us on two or three of those, when we were putting pressure on him early. He just sat in there and threw them perfectly."

Patterson said that his defense finally seemed to look like itself when he stopped trying to play mix-and-match with the Oklahoma attack.

"You’ve got to give them a lot of credit," Patterson admitted. "They’re the reason they had the big plays."

Patterson seemed more concerned about the way that the Frogs handled the spotlight than the night’s nuts and bolts.

"[Oklahoma] came out with a flurry, and we didn’t match it," he said.

"Once we settled in and stopped trying to be smarter than they were, I thought we played better football."

If anything, TCU played to the final whistle, and that pleased the head coach.

"But we’re past that," he said. "We came here to win."

Oklahoma had the added fuel of knowing that the nation’s No. 1-ranked team, Southern Cal, had been upset by Oregon State on Thursday. But polls are little more than popularity contests at this point of the season.

As the Sooners showed, they were the best team in the nation, even before last Thursday night. They are a devilish blend of speed, depth and precise execution.

And now they have a new trick with the no-huddle offense.

"They’re very athletic," Patterson said. "I think what they’re doing on offense is going to cause a lot of people a lot of problems."

Oklahoma can expect his vote in the coaches poll Sunday, Patterson said.

For TCU, meanwhile, the challenge will be to learn from Saturday night’s 35-10 licking and move along.

"Did we learn enough here to go on the road in the conference and win?" Patterson asked. "That’s going to be the question."

This, on the other hand, was too much. Too much Oklahoma.

Too hot, in every way that the Frogs could have imagined.