NORMAN (AP) — Gerald McCoy came out of the locker room without the towel he likes to wear as a cape. Even after a 26-point victory, Oklahoma’s defensive effort didn’t have him feeling like a superhero.

The Sooners’ mighty defense was dominant when it needed to be to close out a 52-26 win against Cincinnati on Saturday, but McCoy was more focused on what could’ve been done better.

Oklahoma (2-0) moved up one spot in the rankings Sunday to No. 3, but fell in the defensive standings from first in the nation to eighth.

“We’ve still got a lot of things we could fix. We played better the second half, but I’m not going to just walk out of here like we’re where we need to be because we’re not. It’s just the second game of the season,” McCoy said.

“If this was the national championship, then I could say this and that but we’ve got a long way to go.”

Of course, McCoy is doing his job as a team captain — albeit as a sophomore. He remembers how Oklahoma overpowered its early opponents last season, only to show cracks later on in a 34-27 loss to Texas Tech that cost the Sooners a shot at the national championship. And then West Virginia exploited the defense again and again in a 48-28 Fiesta Bowl blowout.

So, there’s plenty of reason for McCoy to be focused on the negative, even if Sooners coach Bob Stoops had a mostly positive assessment of how his defense fared against a Cincinnati unit that was 16th in the nation in scoring last season.

The Bearcats rolled up 245 yards of total offense in the first half, scoring on a 1-yard sneak by quarterback Dustin Grutza and a 14-yard pass from Grutza to Dominick Goodman.

The other scoring came on a second-half kickoff return by Mardy Gilyard and a 1-yard dive by Scott Johnson that came as time expired, only after Cincinnati called timeout with 3 seconds left despite being 32 points down.

“Let’s face it, these guys have racked up a bunch of points on a lot of people and the defense only gives up two touchdowns until the last second of the game,” Stoops said. “That’s pretty darn good.”

Between halftime and the Bearcats’ final drive in the last 83 seconds, the Sooners clamped down to allow only 43 yards and three first downs. Cincinnati’s first three offensive drives of the second half went four-and-out, three-and-out, three-and-out.

With the defense doing its job, the Sooners’ offense was able to put up 24 consecutive points to take control of the game.

“I can say that we were more solid in the second half. We had a few minor mistakes in the first half that we went in the second half, made some adjustments and came out and played better,” McCoy said.

Outside linebacker Travis Lewis had 12 tackles and two sacks in only his second career start, and a new defensive wrinkle helped Jeremy Beal become a disruptive force. Beal, a former linebacker who now plays defensive end, kept his hand out of the dirt and was constantly moving along the line of scrimmage to find the right place to apply pressure.

He ended up with a career-high 10 tackles — four more than his previous best — to become the first Oklahoma defensive lineman to reach double digits since 2001. He also had one sack.