Russel Hill kept a straight face when Idaho State quarterbacks coach Brian Jensen leaned over his shoulder until their cheeks almost touched during his pre-practice interview Thursday at Holt Arena.

Jensen then moved his jaws up and down in an exaggerated fashion to pantomime an interview and also made peace signs in Hill's face.

When Hill finally threw a few sideward glances at Jensen, the coach said, "You've got to focus. It's like a pass rush," before walking off.

Only when Jensen was no longer in hearing range did Hill allow himself a sheepish grin.

"That was a little weird," said Hill, a junior quarterback.

As the exchange demonstrated, the Bengals are capable of levity even after they suffered a frustrating 50-3 loss at Arizona State last weekend and while they prepare for an even-more daunting game at No. 13 Oklahoma on Saturday.

Sure, the days following their season-opening defeat were a bit depressing. But the Bengals insist they're over that and have practiced with renewed vigor for their clash against the Sooners, which kicks off at 5:05 p.m. Saturday at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.

"The morale is actually good," said quarterback Kyle Blum, who has been supplanted as Saturday's starter by Hill. "They worked really hard in the weight room and with all that conditioning stuff. I was actually proud to see our whole team step it up and work harder and still feel good about themselves. Not about the fact that we got beat by that scoreline, but the fact that they're hungry. They want it more."

It took Idaho State's players - and Blum, in particular - a few days to get to that point, though.

When Blum returned to his hotel room hours after the Arizona State loss, he was still fuming about his three-interception performance. Watching ESPN SportsCenter on a loop provided a little relief, but not much.

"Everyone was real nice," Blum said. "I was pretty down, but everyone was still confident in me, telling me to keep my chin up. They've seen what I can do and that wasn't it, so they're not worried."

Idaho State's defenders weren't much happier about the result. Even though coach John Zamberlin repeatedly praised them in post-game interviews about holding Arizona State's first-string offense to one touchdown in nine drives, the game still ended with the digits "50" on the Sun Devils' portion of the scoreboard.

"You can't help but be down when you see '50' up there," junior defensive end Sean Rutten said. "You try to bring all these positives out of it and say, 'We learned from this. We learned from that.' But you can never let a team put 50 up on you and leave the town smiling."

Blum said his sour mood lasted only until Tuesday, when the Bengals practiced in full pads once again.

As he and his teammates turned their focus to their second game, they realized their experience in Tempe, Ariz., might go a long way toward helping them compete against the Sooners.

For one, the Bengals will have shaken off their "first-game jitters," as Rutten described it. Watching Arizona State's pre-game fireworks and listening to its raucous student section initially rattled Rutten a little, but having seen all that, he doubts the atmosphere at Oklahoma will intimidate him.

Idaho State's offense is also confident it will fare better than it did last week, when it picked up just 37 yards. Almost every single Bengal said afterward they didn't expect the Sun Devils to fly around as quickly as they did.

A similar tempo this week won't shock them as much, the Bengals reason.

"You've just got to speed it up a little bit," Hill said. "You've got to speed up your tempo, you've got to get rid of the ball and you're going to take a hit in the face - fast."

Hopeful they can perform better against Oklahoma than against Arizona State, Idaho State's players don't hold a grudge against the program's administrators for putting together such a difficult early season schedule.

"It's a good opportunity for us to see what we can do. It's a challenge," Hill said. "This forces us right away from the beginning of the season to be on our game and to get ready early. There's two ways to look at it, and we're choosing to look at it in an optimistic way."