Sam Bradford is not Opie Taylor. He’s got dark hair. He looks nothing like a young Ron Howard. Besides, Major Applewhite was Opie Taylor, so Bradford’s stuck being just plain Sam.

And that works, too, because every time Oklahoma’s redshirt freshman quarterback opens his mouth, you kind of expect him to start with, “Ah, shucks …”

“They were unreal,” he said of his offensive line last week against Miami. “I hardly got touched out there.”

Just crazy modest.

Like it wasn’t him.

Like it hasn’t been him, not really, completing 40-of-48 passes and throwing eight touchdowns without an interception.

He’s taken only one sack, which says more about his line than him and it sure is easier to be on the money when you’re not under pressure. But somebody still has to lay the ball in there and it’s not like Bradford hasn’t taken a couple of hits just after letting fly with another on-target toss.

So, basically, it’s him.

No quarterback in the history of the college game has ever been as good statistically after two games than Bradford.

I don’t know what the formula is for collegiate quarterback rating but Bradford leads everybody at 237.7 while Florida’s Tim Tebow’s at 228.2. So the Sooner’s 11.5 points clear of the field while Louisville’s Brian Brohm and Rutgers’ Mike Teel are both within 31⁄2 points of Tebow.

Still, it’s only two games.

OU could cover the stratospheric spread today even if Bradford comes back down to mere mortality. And then again, just maybe, it’s happening again.

When Jason White came out of two reconstructive knee surgeries to be the nation’s best quarterback for two years running, it was hard to imagine a better story. Bradford’s tale may be handicapped by his perpetual able-body, but he’s got four seasons rather than two and, just like White, absolutely nobody saw it coming.

Not like this.

Bob Stoops can say nothing surprises him, but if he saw any of this coming just why on earth was there a quarterback competition taking place in late August?