Before thunderstorms soaked OU’s contest against Tennessee-Chattanooga this Saturday, the Sooners managed to score 50 points in the first half for only the second time in the modern era.

Junior running back Chris Brown had a hat trick of touchdowns, including runs of one, nine and 10 yards for scores.

Sophomore running back DeMarco Murray added two touchdowns of his own, both from one yard out.

Sophomore quarterback Sam Bradford found seniors Quentin Chaney and Manuel Johnson for a pair of touchdown passes from three yards and seven yards out, respectively.

Junior backup quarterback Joey Halzle even tossed a 36-yard touchdown pass to senior Juaquin Iglesias.

All this added up to something legendary OU coach Barry Switzer was known for discussing, “hanging a fast half-hundred in the first half,” as the Sooners led 50-0 after the first half and won 57-2.

Head coach Bob Stoops has overseen some lopsided victories — including a 77-0 massacre of Texas A&M in 2003 — but Saturday’s score was the most the Sooners have scored in the first half during the Stoops era.

The only other time OU scored 50 points in the first half occurred in 1978, when the Sooners reeled off 52 points against Rice.

The OU record for points in any half is 55, a mark it set against Kansas State in 1942.

Stoops was concerned about running up the score against the overmatched Mocs, leading to the Sooners easing up a bit.

Stoops inserted fullback Matt Clapp at running back at one point, and sophomore Dominique Franks called a fair catch on a punt with plenty of space around him.

“In the second half, when you’re up 50-to-nothing at halftime, you have to put it together and move it, but you don’t want to be the bad guy and throw it all over the place and take advantage of what’s there,” Stoops said.

Moving it was even more important considering the circumstances.

The massive thunderstorm that attacked the stadium at halftime caused a 72-minute delay, which increased the total gametime to four hours and nine minutes. Combined with the original halftime intermission, even more time was added to a very long and uneven first half.

But despite the score and delay situation, there was never any talk of running a continuous clock in the second half, said athletic director Joe Castiglione.

“We really didn’t reach the point of dealing with those kinds of issues,” Castiglione said. “The weather was a challenge in itself, and so I’m not going to speculate on that.”

Weather has been known to be a factor in football games, but typically it’s more in the form of early-winter storms.

“Obviously weather did what it does,” Castiglione said. “[It’s] hard to explain why it seemed to keep hovering over Norman.”

The new scoreboard — unveiled for the first time before Saturday’s contest — went out briefly after major lightning struck the area. Some of the stadium’s other lighting went out as well.

“We’re not really sure what caused the power outage, we think it was a power surge somewhere else,” Castiglione said.

Associate director for communications Kenny Mossman said the problem was not with the scoreboard, but rather with a computer that rebooted.

The game’s total running time of 4:09 marks the second longest outing in school history. The longest was 4:12 in 2005, which the Sooners won in double overtime against Baylor.