Sooners looking down the road

<br>NORMAN, Okla. (AP) _ An open date this week will give No. 2 Oklahoma plenty of time to prepare for South Florida, not to mention some Big 12 opponents. <br><br>The Sooners (3-0) finish the nonconference

Tuesday, September 17th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) _ An open date this week will give No. 2 Oklahoma plenty of time to prepare for South Florida, not to mention some Big 12 opponents.

The Sooners (3-0) finish the nonconference portion of the schedule Sept. 28 against South Florida, then start conference play with games against Missouri, Texas and Iowa State.

All three of those teams will get some attention this week, coach Bob Stoops said Tuesday.

``We'll look at different parts of what they do and group them together and work on parts of their game plan versus ours, and try to sharpen it up some,'' Stoops said.

He said there isn't any part of his team that won't get some attention this week. The Sooners have had two easy games, 37-0 over Tulsa and 68-0 over Texas-El Paso, and a real test _ a come-from-behind, 37-27 victory over Alabama.

``We're working on everything,'' he said. ``We need to throw and catch better, we need to run the ball better, we need to still tackle better, be a little more aggressive in our blitzing. All of that together is something that we're pushing for.

``This will be a good week to get polished up and a little better in some areas, and also to concentrate on our next four opponents.''

Stoops said he's glad the Sooners got such a stiff test against Alabama, because it highlighted areas where the team needed to improve. The fact the Sooners were able to win despite breakdowns in several areas was even more impressive, he said.

``You look around the country and see some of these good matchups, and they don't always work so well for everybody,'' he said. ``It gives us time now to iron out some of those problems and improve on them, and hopefully make us better for it.''

The Sooners played much better in all areas against UTEP than they did against Alabama, where special teams errors and defensive lapses helped put them in a bind.

Stoops said his staff and players realize UTEP doesn't compare to Alabama, but he was more interested in seeing whether the team would improve.

``What I like is we didn't beat ourself,'' he said. ``We didn't make some of the mistakes we made in the previous week.''