No time to celebrate for souped-up Sooners

MIAMI No time to celebrate. The high-fives can wait. Oklahoma's incomparable no-huddle offense is always in a rush. Not until the high-scoring Sooners reach the end zone do they take time to admire their work.

Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford and the Sooners scored an NCAA-record 702 points this season, often striking so fast, moving so quickly between plays, opponents were left wondering what hit them.

Oklahoma had 18 scoring drives of less than 60 seconds. There were moments when even Bradford had a tough time staying with his souped-up Sooners.

"Sometimes we'd be going and all of a sudden it's third down-and-10 and I wouldn't realize that because the first two plays have gone so quick," he said.

Slowing down Oklahoma is almost impossible. Florida's job in the BCS national championship game Thursday night is to simply keep pace with the Sooners.

"They really don't give you a chance to get lined up," Florida All-American linebacker Brandon Spikes said during media day Monday at Dolphins Stadium. "They'll get a big play just because a guy was out of his gap or he wasn't ready to play."

Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops developed the Sooners' need for speed shortly after they were handed a 48-28 loss in the Fiesta Bowl by a West Virginia team that was drilled by then-coach Rich Rodriguez not to dilly-dally between snaps.

Rodriguez, now with Michigan, has been using the hurry-up since his days coaching at NAIA Glenville State in West Virginia.

"You ever watch a team go up and down (the field) in a 2-minute drill and say, 'Why don't they do that the whole game?' You've got to be in great shape and it takes a commitment to it," Rodriguez said in a phone interview.

"It is an adjustment. You grow up from Pop Warner days, running a play, then getting in the huddle, calling a play, then jogging to the line and running a play. Then repeating it. And here you run a play, then run another play. It goes against the grain of what you grow up on."

And it can really catch an opponent off-guard, as anyone can tell who watched Utah jump on Alabama with the no-huddle in the Utes' surprising 28-17 Sugar Bowl victory.

Rodriguez has a kindred spirit on the Oklahoma staff in offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson. Both devotees of the spread offense, they've often shared ideas and philosophies.

Wilson had used the no-huddle while working under the late Randy Walker at Northwestern and Miami of Ohio.

So when Stoops came to Wilson and said he'd like to the Sooners to pick up the pace, Wilson had a plan ready to go. The tools were in place, too.

Rodriguez said the speed at which a team can run the no-huddle is directly tied to the experience and smarts of the quarterback and the offensive line.

In Bradford, Oklahoma had a quarterback who set NCAA records in 2007 as a redshirt freshman. Up front, the Sooners had four seniors and a junior in the starting lineup.

The next step for Wilson was teaching his players and getting them to commit.

"It really took a long time," Oklahoma center Jon Cooper said. "We were in two-a-days and we thought we were going as fast as we can and coach Wilson completely stopped what we were doing and started yelling at us and saying, 'This isn't going to work, this isn't fast enough.'

"We were kind of like, 'I don't know how we're going to go any faster."'

The change of pace was especially tough on the huge offensive linemen.

"When we first started back in the spring, I think the whole O-line was a little skeptical," said tackle Phil Loadholt, who dropped from 350 to about 335 pounds to be better suited to run the no-huddle. "We used to look forward to maybe after a play, go back get in the huddle and maybe take a couple of deep breathes."

By the end of preseason, Wilson had seen enough progress to go with the no-huddle.

The Sooners scored 109 points in their first two games, but still they weren't going fast enough for Wilson.

"We had to teach our guys, you don't have time to celebrate," he said. "Give the ball to the referee. The faster the ball's in play, the faster we can play."

As if having a lineup filled with NFL prospects wasn't enough for defenses to worry about when facing Oklahoma, now they had to stress about simply getting set.

TCU, which had the No. 2 defense in the country before the bowls, allowed 35 points in the first half to Oklahoma.

Horned Frogs coach Gary Patterson said he's never seen a team play that fast early in a game. The Frogs drew two penalties for having too many men on the field, and gave up a couple of easy touchdowns because they were not prepared for the snap.

"That was my fault because I tried to put in a call late as they were coming to the line of scrimmage and it just wouldn't work," Patterson said in a phone interview. "When I finally let my kids play, they played at lot better."

Having scored at least 60 points in each of their last five games, the Sooners seem to have mastered the no-huddle, right? Not according to Loadholt.

"It's still not perfect yet."