Oklahoma's season opener never got competitive: the Sooners scored on 8 straight possessions and buried UTEP 51-0 in Norman.
This was the first real look at Brent Venables' fifth Oklahoma team, and it came against a UTEP program that just finished 2-10 and was starting a brand-new quarterback in EJ Colson Jr. The gap in roster and experience was always going to be the story, and it showed from the opening drive.
−Tougher games loom, risk of overlooking a guarantee game
−New transfer weapons still building chemistry with Mateer
John Mateer ran the Oklahoma offense efficiently rather than spectacularly, completing 11 of 17 passes for 225 yards and 3 touchdowns before getting pulled in the third quarter with the game long decided. His scoring throws went to Rocky Beers, Isaiah Sategna and Trell Harris, all incoming transfers, and the Sooners leaned on the ground game too, rushing 39 times for 170 yards.
Sategna was the best player on the field regardless of position. He returned a punt 88 yards for a touchdown to make it 14-0 in the first quarter, then added a 34-yard receiving score, finishing with 215 all-purpose yards. UTEP, playing its first game as a Mountain West member under third-year coach Scotty Walden, managed just 198 total yards and never got on the board.
Oklahoma led 27-0 at the half and mostly played mop-up football from there, adding 17 in the third before a running-clock fourth quarter. The defense didn't need to do much heavy lifting against a UTEP offense that had no answer for the size and speed gap, and Colson's debut never found a rhythm behind a line getting overwhelmed.
It was exactly the kind of tune-up Oklahoma wanted heading into a much tougher slate, and exactly the kind of overmatched trip UTEP knew it was signing up for in Year 1 of the Mountain West. The scoreboard settled the question by the second quarter.
