DALLAS -- Some Sooner game day traditions stay the same.

The University of Oklahoma RUF/NEKS shooting their guns and driving the schooner across the end zone after touchdowns is certainly one of them.

But this is the first football season since the all-male spirit group was reorganized, changing many longstanding traditions. But while the group may have looked different to its members, it still looked the same to spectators.

And members say that's a good thing.

"If the crowd doesn't notice a difference, that's a good thing for us," said Landon Collins, RUF/NEKS president.

The independent student group was established in 1915. It has a rich history, but this spring the OU administration decided to reorganize the group under the authority of the Athletic Department.

OU President David Boren said last fall that the university was alerted to dangerous hazing practices by the RUF/NEKS through several calls to the anonymous hazing hotline after OU-Texas weekend. An investigation found evidence of the misuse of alcohol as well as evidence that pledges were subjected to a "pervasive" atmosphere of hazing, Boren said.

So the entire membership of the RUF/NEKS was dismissed and RUF/NEK alumni and first-year pledges carried on the traditions for the rest of the season.

Collins was one of those pledges. He said the allegations against the RUF/NEKS were "blown extremely out of proportion."

"A lot of stories got started that weren't necessarily true," he said. There was no hazing, he said.

"Really what we got in trouble for was the alcohol thing," Collins said.

In an effort to keep the tradition of the RUF/NEKS going while addressing the problems, the administration changed the way membership was chosen.

Instead of pledging to the group like a fraternity, men interested in becoming members filled out applications and then were interviewed by a board of RUF/NEK alumni and OU personnel.

Clarke Stroud, vice president of Student Life and a RUF/NEKS alumni, sits on the board that selected the new membership this year. He said the young men are handling the changes well.

"To go and in one year fundamentally change the membership and the culture and the direction of the organization, I think it's gone really very well," he said.