— NORMAN – The old adage is teams make their biggest improvement between the first and second games. Oklahoma hopes it doesn’t buck the trend in tonight’s meeting with Florida A&M.

The Sooners (1-0) know their performance in a season-opening 24-7 victory over UTEP left a lot to be desired and caused many to wonder if OU was truly worthy of its preseason status as Big 12 Conference favorite and a national championship contender.

“Everyone kind of freaks out the first game, but we need to play better and we will,” middle linebacker Tom Wort said. “Everyone freaks out, but everyone here has a level mindset. We’ll get better.”

They have to, or it’s going to be a long season.

Spending more than three quarters mired in a one-possession game wasn’t the ideal way to start the thing off.

Quarterback Landry Jones struggled to connect with any receivers other than Kenny Stills. The offensive line had some pass protection issues. OU’s special teams had one of its worst games in years with a blocked field goal and blocked punt that resulted in a touchdown.

Mistakes are going to be made. Repeating them is what sends seasons spiraling down the drain.

“It’s just one of those things where it takes time to get at the peak of your game,” center Gabe Ikard said.

But how can improvement be measured?

Florida A&M (1-0) is an Football Championship Subdivision team and OU has typically avoided playing teams outside the Football Bowl Subdivision.

The Sooners didn’t set out to play an FCS team this season. The non-conference schedule had to be shuffled in the spring after the Big 12 Conference announced it was bringing in TCU as a new member. OU already had the Horned Frogs as a non-conference opponent and was left scurrying to find a replacement.

The result is a game that shouldn’t be competitive. There’s the simple matter of the Sooners having 20 more scholarship players in uniform. There won’t be a game this season where OU has a bigger talent edge.

It comes down to discipline.

Tonight’s game isn’t about the big picture of being able to compete for a Big 12 or even a national championship. It’s about the fine points of execution.

“It’s not big-picture things. It’s a lot of fine detail that we’ve got to continue to iron out,” OU offensive coordinator Josh Heupel said.

Smoothing out what didn’t go as planned against UTEP is important for OU’s starters and second-team players. The quicker they can do it the better.

The other objective — and it’s a big one tonight — is to get the Sooners’ backups involved in the game quickly. The struggles against UTEP eliminated that chance. With the start of the Big 12 season coming on Sept. 22 against Kansas State folloowing an off week, tonight is the Sooners’ last chance to truly clear the bench and see what these guys can do.

Everyone in a Sooner uniform has something to prove tonight and it goes well beyond the scoreboard.

“We know what we’re capable of. When we don’t perform the way we know we’re capable of, we feel bad,” left guard Adam Shead said. “It’s just the thought of knowing you left something on the field.”

The only way to get rid of that feeling is to improve. The Sooners have had six days to do that since the season opener. Tonight, they need to show strides have been made. The opponent doesn’t matter.