Editor’s note: This is the first in an occasional series examining the people, events and impacts of Oklahoma’s 2000 national championship season 20 years later.

NORMAN, Okla. — Curtis Fagan strutted through campus as the University of Oklahoma’s fall semester began in August 1998, taking part in a cherished pastime for young men: Talking to the coeds.

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One young woman in particular, though, seemed far from impressed when Fagan and his friends informed her that they were OU athletes.

“So what, you guys play for the football team?” she said. “You guys are horrible. Y’all suck.”

Fagan felt a rush of surprise but told her that his freshman class was special. The wide receiver also noted that he’d never been part of a losing team before. Then he added one more thing.

“Remember this,” Fagan told her. “We will win championships here.”

Nearly 2 1/2 years after that exchange, Fagan made good on that promise. Oklahoma won the Big 12 and national championships in 2000, returning the Sooners to their traditional place within the college football hierarchy after several seasons of misery.

But the national championship, OU’s seventh, was far from expected by most. The Sooners were in only their second season since the John Blake era, which represented the worst three-year stretch in school history. Bob Stoops led OU to a 7-5 record and a bowl appearance in 1999, his first season, and the Sooners led at some point in every game they lost that season. But few believed Oklahoma to be capable of winning it all the very next year.

For their first six national titles, the Sooners began the season ranked in the top 10. The Sooners opened 2000 at No. 19 in the Associated Press preseason top 25.

Now 20 years later, the players and coaches from that season offer a wide range of answers when asked if they thought a national title was possible. Wide receiver Josh Norman started to believe in something special during one preseason team meeting, when quarterback Josh Heupel stood in front of the team and went game by game, explaining why each one was winnable. Tight end Trent Smith broke down the schedule on his own and realized that if OU could find a way to get through October — which offered games against Texas, Kansas State and Nebraska — it would almost certainly be ranked No. 1.

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Co-defensive coordinator Brent Venables, on the other hand, acknowledged he wasn’t thinking about national championships before that season began.

“I wasn’t there at all,” said Venables, now Clemson’s defensive coordinator. “I’d like to be able to say, ‘Oh yeah, I always believed in them! I knew we could do it!’

“Man, I was on another planet.”

That was probably more in line with the college football world at large at the time. Today, Oklahoma is a perennial top-10 team and one of the most consistent programs in college football, though the 2000 title remains its most recent. But two decades ago, Oklahoma was seen more as a program on the rise, with plenty still to prove.

And in some ways, that theme continued throughout the season, even as OU won game after game and rose in the polls. The Sooners thrashed Red River rival and No. 11 Texas by a staggering 63-14, with Quentin Griffin rushing for six touchdowns. A week later, OU went to Manhattan, Kan., and beat the No. 2-ranked Wildcats 41-31. Then on Oct. 28, the Sooners stunned top-ranked Nebraska 31-14 in Norman, ascending to the top of the polls.

But even after “Red October” — as that month is still known in Oklahoma — there was a sense that somewhere along the way, the Sooners would be beaten.

And it almost happened. OU needed a fourth-quarter rally and Torrance Marshall’s legendary 41-yard interception return to beat Texas A&M 35-31. The Sooners barely scraped by Oklahoma State, which struggled all season and had a lame-duck coach, in the regular-season finale, winning 12-7 because cornerback Derrick Strait managed to tip the go-ahead touchdown pass away in the end zone with 3:15 remaining.

The offense struggled late in the season in part because Heupel’s arm was so badly injured that for the last several weeks of the regular season, he couldn’t even throw passes in practice. Heupel took the snap and dropped back but assistant coach Cale Gundy threw the passes.

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But the defense proved dominant, with players such as Marshall, Strait, Rocky Calmus, Roy Williams and Ontei Jones leading the charge.

“What was unique about that team was just how much better we got week in and week out,” Venables said. “That was as profound as anything. And the toughness that they had.

“We were just a bunch of misfits. From play to play and week to week, we had a lot to prove.”

That was especially true in the lead-up to the national championship game, played that year in the Orange Bowl against Florida State. The Seminoles, with coach Bobby Bowden, were the defending champions and playing in their third consecutive national championship game. They were one of the preeminent programs of the 1990s. Florida State quarterback Chris Weinke won the Heisman Trophy, beating out Heupel, whose relationship with OU today is complicated by his firing as offensive coordinator in 2015. FSU was an 11.5-point favorite, the second-biggest point spread in any national championship game in the BCS/College Football Playoff era.

Many believed that the better national championship game would be a rematch between Florida State and Miami, which had beaten the Seminoles during the regular season and also had only one loss. Of course, Miami was filled with future NFL stars such as Ed Reed, Andre Johnson and Jeremy Shockey, and in 2001, the Hurricanes had what has been considered one of the greatest seasons in college football history.

But by the Orange Bowl, Oklahoma players were sick of hearing about how badly outmanned they would be against Florida State. Marshall, a Miami native who once dreamed of playing for Florida State, set the tone at the coin toss when he looked across at Weinke and yelled, “You got my boy’s trophy!”

After a back and forth, Marshall said, “We gonna find out today!”

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Marshall was named the Orange Bowl’s Most Valuable Player, intercepting a pass and recording six tackles in the Sooners’ 13-2 victory.

Florida State finished with 301 total yards after averaging 549 during the regular season. The Seminoles averaged 165 rushing yards per game but finished the Orange Bowl with 27.

“We really whooped that ass,” Marshall said. “It wasn’t by no fluke or anything like that. We went into that game wanting to whoop. Their. Ass. Plain and simple.”

After the game, Bowden conceded, “When I look at it now, I think it should have been Miami and Oklahoma. We didn’t look like we belonged here.”

Since that night, Oklahoma has won 12 more Big 12 championships and 207 games. Four Sooners players have won the Heisman Trophy and 43 have been named first-team All-Americans. Stoops retired in 2017 as the program’s all-time winningest coach.

But the Sooners haven’t won another national championship, though they have played in three title games and reached the College Football Playoff semifinals four times. This is the longest the program has gone without a national title since it won its first in 1950.

“I would’ve lost a lot of money if you’d told me back then that we wouldn’t have been able to put another one together, especially with all the teams that have come through here,” said Frank Romero, Oklahoma’s starting left tackle that season. “That just shows you how hard it is to win, and win them all.

“They will, though. They’ll have a couple here in the next five years.”

Fagan, who is now 41 and a medical sales manager in Scottsdale, Ariz., still loves telling the story of the girl who told him they sucked — and the aftermath.

Several months after the Sooners’ Orange Bowl win, he got an email or a letter — he can’t remember which. The young woman from campus reminded Fagan of what he’d told her and how he’d delivered on that promise.

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“Just the coolest thing,” Fagan said. “I was blown away.”

(Photo of Curtis Fagan during Oklahoma’s 31-14 victory against Nebraska in 2000: Brian Bahr / Allsport)