Clearly Mother Nature had a problem with Oklahoma’s season-opening opponent Saturday night.

She didn’t care if somebody canceled or weaseled their way out of a contract. It didn’t matter if Bob Stoops himself stormed into Joe Castiglione’s office one day like Scotty, aboard the Enterprise, storming the bridge and frantically informing Captain Kirk of all the horror which might occur … “Captain, I can only hold my boys back so much; the Mocs will be massacred; it can be no other way, Captain.”

Mother Nature wouldn’t have it.

Or, at least, she tried.

She sent a rain and lightning storm that made for a near hour-and-a-half halftime and a voluntarily evacuated stadium. She even brought a power surge that turned the lights and (far scarier to Sooner brass) new $4.5 million videoboard off.

(And most uncomfortable of all, turned the air conditioning off in the press box)

About the only two guys who wouldn’t budge were a lone OU cop, apparently guarding the 50-yard-line with nothing but his officer-hat between his noggin and all the weather, and some clearly disturbed guy, standing directly across the field from the officer, about four rows up, like a scarecrow, dressed in jeans and flannel. If Norman Bates ever stared down a thunderstorm, that’s what it looked like.

But it wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t enough to keep lowly Tennessee-Chattanooga from enduring a 57-2 wallop that included 50 points and 19 Sooner first downs all before the half. Even without a turnover handed it, OU’s first two quarters included seven scoring drives, six of them lasting no more than five plays.

Bob Stoops broke a record set all the way back in 2000, voluntarily pulling his starting quarterback in the second quarter (in 2000, he pulled Josh Heupel at the half), giving Nate Hybl a half of his own at Baylor. Though, oddly, he sent Sam Bradford out for the first three series of the second half.

Still, given his early chance, it took Joey Halzle only three plays to hit Juaquin Iglesias in stride and in the end zone from 36 yards away.

It was all OU might have wanted, which is to say nothing anybody else wanted.

No drama.

No point to it but the $400,000 check the Mocs took back to Chattanooga, where they’ll soon be preparing for NAIA Cumberland before meeting Florida State in Week 3, which is kind of like going to Blockbuster and renting “The Graduate” and “Raging Bull”, but watching “Howard the Duck” in between.

Hardly even an answered question or new question posed following the first 60 minutes of the Sooner season, which does OU few favors. Not with a formidable Cincinnati team on the way to Owen Field, nor with Washington waiting a week later in Seattle or TCU coming up from Fort Worth two weeks later.