While most students are either pouring their morning cup of coffee or still finding comfort in their dreams, the empty stands of John Crain Field echo with the commands and corrections from the players and coaches of OU’s women’s soccer team.

This season marks the beginning of the Nicole Nelson era, as the Oklahoma native takes over the head coaching job for her second NCAA team.

“I think as a whole things are much better,” said four-year starting senior defender Katie Corbitt. “[Nelson] is much more intense.”

Nelson started her collegiate coaching career in 2001 as an assistant coach at Stephen F. Austin University and rose to the head coaching job the next year. In 2005, she entered the Big 12 Conference coaching realm as an assistant coach for both Baylor and then Texas.

“We’re focusing a lot on changing the culture,” Nelson said. “By that I mean being able to compete day in and day out and being very aggressive. As a basketball coach would say, we need to have an up-tempo style of play. Key wins will lead to success at the end of the season and we have a schedule where I think we’ll be able to get those key wins, significant strength-of-schedule wins.”

Over the course of her seven years of NCAA coaching, Nelson was named Southland Conference Coach of the year twice while at Stephen F. Austin, was a part of three conference tournament championship coaching staffs — two in the Big 12 and one in the Southland Conference — and has one Southland Conference title. She has also helped lead teams into the NCAA tournament three times, including two Sweet 16 appearances.

This season’s squad has the element of youth at their disposal with only three seniors on the roster. In their first scrimmage, of the season against Stephen F. Austin, all but four of the starters were either freshmen or sophomores.

With the youth of this year’s team comes a good amount of speed, which the Sooners hope to use as an advantage over their opponents.

“Our offense is going to play a major role in our success this year,” sophomore forward Lauren Alkek said. “I don’t think anyone in the Big 12 can compete with us, and if we can figure out and get our chemistry together and start connecting our passes better I don’t think there will be a whole lot of defenses that can stop us.”

The Sooners start their season on the road today against Colorado College. The Tigers have been one of the NCAA’s quietest teams, posting good records over the past couple of seasons without getting a whole lot of recognition.

“We’ve never played them before, so we have to come out expecting anything, pretty much, and go in there hard the whole entire game and can’t let down,” said sophomore forward Whitney Palmer, OU’s leading scorer last season. “We’ve got to take everything we’ve worked on in training camp and use it in the game.”

The Tigers have recorded a 41-25-9 record (.607) since 2004. In 2006, its first season as an affiliate member of Conference USA, the team earned its first NCAA playoff bid in 15 years en route to an overall mark of 15-6-1.

“It’s a pretty even match up,” Nelson said. “They have a very recognized soccer program and a lot of people look at Colorado College and don’t understand how competitive of a Division-I program that has a winning tradition on the soccer side. So, they’re a good team.”