KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Oklahoma arrived at Big 12 Media Days last, but was clearly the hot topic Wednesday.

It was no surprise considering the Sooners are the clear-cut favorites to win the conference title.

OU coach Bob Stoops had no problem with being the team to beat, but there was something else on his mind.

“I feel like we have a solid football team, but we have a lot to prove,” he said. “A year ago we were an 8-4 football team. We’ve got a lot of guys back from that team. But hopefully we can be a more disciplined and tougher team this season than we were a year ago.”

Discipline and toughness seem to be very important words to OU.

The Sooners were lacking both when the 2005 season started, and that was the biggest reason they were out of Big 12 and national title contention halfway through.

That’s why the Sooners say there’s a sense of urgency with preseason practice set to start in less than two weeks.

“Winning is like a job,” linebacker Rufus Alexander said. “You have to work to do it. Nothing is a given.”

OU learned the lesson last season.

By the end of the year, it was playing at a championship level and capped the season with a victory over Oregon in the Holiday Bowl.

Every team wants to improve as the season goes along. The teams that don’t, rarely accomplish much.

But Stoops said the bar has to be higher in September.

“Hopefully we don’t have to start the year that way to finish that way,” he said. “You know, the bottom line is we need to be better earlier. And we need to be, as I said, a more disciplined and tougher football team to start the season. We’ve got to be better through the year, and we played that way as we got toward the end of the year.”

Does that mean there will be drastic changes to what the Sooners have usually done in August?

Not really.