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Florida St.-Oklahoma Preview

Sep 8, 2010 - 1:53 AM By MATT BECKER STATS Senior Writer

Florida State (1-0) at Oklahoma (1-0), 3:30 p.m. EDT

Coming off a lackluster season-opening victory over a lesser opponent, Oklahoma knows it has plenty of areas it needs to improve to be a championship-caliber team.

It's going to need to make those adjustments quickly considering how dominant Florida State looked last week.

The 10th-ranked Sooners try to shore up their problems on both sides of the ball when they host the No. 17 Seminoles on Saturday in their first meeting since the 2000 national title game.

Oklahoma likely wasn't expecting to be challenged much against Utah State last Saturday, but it had to hold on late to win 31-24. A Jamell Fleming interception with 4:12 to play sealed the victory for the Sooners, who dropped three spots in the poll Tuesday.

Oklahoma looked good at times, rolling up 412 yards of offense, but also turned the ball over twice and went 5 for 17 on third-down conversions. Landry Jones finished with 217 yards on 17-of-36 passing (47.2 percent) with two interceptions and two first-half touchdown passes.

"For a guy that has played as many games as he did a year ago, he didn't look like he was in his comfort zone at all," coach Bob Stoops said. "Both sides of the ball, I thought we were inconsistent and I'm really not at all pleased with it in any way."

The defense forced four turnovers but allowed 421 yards - 341 through the air.

"These are guys that are more than capable of playing at a high level and playing well on Saturday," defensive coordinator Brent Venables said. "That's the plan of attack here is to get things corrected and moved forward and improve from it and learn from it."

Oklahoma certainly can't feel comfortable after watching Florida State cruise to a 59-6 win over Samford last Saturday in Jimbo Fisher's first game as coach as the replacement for Bobby Bowden.

The Seminoles, who moved up three spots in the poll, rolled up 481 yards, scored 35 points during an 11-minute span of the second quarter, had seven players score and never punted.

Christian Ponder, playing for the first time since suffering a season-ending shoulder injury last November, completed 12 of 14 passes for 167 yards and four touchdowns while playing only the first half.

Although the Seminoles had little trouble in their opener, they know it won't be as easy in Norman, where the Sooners have won 31 straight - the longest home winning streak in the nation.

"It's going to be a great test," Fisher said. "Hopefully we can handle a little pressure when we go out there. It's good for our young football team."

Florida State's offensive line probably won't be able to control the line of scrimmage as easily as it did against the Bulldogs. Junior Ty Jones had plenty of room to run, rushing for 107 yards on eight carries.

While moving the ball on the ground could be tough, Fisher hopes Ponder can take advantage of facing an inexperienced Oklahoma secondary.

"He's mature enough to handle that situation," said Fisher, who sees the game "as a measuring stick" for Ponder and the rest of his team.

Fisher's defense, led by coordinator Mark Stoops, the younger brother of Bob, will focus on containing DeMarco Murray and Ryan Broyles, the only proven playmakers on Oklahoma.

Murray rushed for a career-best 208 yards and two touchdowns and Broyles had 142 yards receiving with two scores last week, but the rest of the offense gained 62 yards.

"We need to get more people contributing, but those are definitely two guys that we definitely need to feature as much as we can every game if the situation allows it," offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson said.

This will be the first meeting between these schools since the Sooners defeated Florida State 13-2 for the 2000 national championship in the Orange Bowl. Oklahoma has won four straight over the Seminoles since losing 36-19 in the first meeting in the 1965 Gator Bowl.