Norman, Okla. ? There’s the gnarly scar on the knee, the memories of hours spent alone in the training room and plenty of fall Saturdays spent on the sideline to help Jason White remember what happened against Alabama last year.

In Oklahoma’s second game of the 2002 season, White blew out his knee while running in the open field, a play on which he wasn’t even touched. On a similar play the year before, he had done nearly the same thing.

The Sooners’ senior quarterback doesn’t need videotape to recall the bizarre injury, which shredded the right ACL and MCL in his right knee and sidelined him for the season.

“I’ve never watched it,” he said Tuesday, days before the No. 1 Sooners travel to Tuscaloosa to face Alabama.

“I know exactly what happened.”

White has unsuccessfully tried to put the memory behind him.

Besides the other lingering reminders, White also has answered hundreds of questions about his knees and that injury since he was named the Sooners’ starting quarterback this summer.

The queries intensified this week as White prepared to face the team that watched him crumple to the ground in their contest last year.

No surprise, White is tired of talking about it.

“I don’t really think about it that much anymore,” White said. “I really don’t.”

But others do. Coaches, teammates and fans were all curious to see how White would handle his return to the gridiron last week.

“He showed a lot of why we were so positive about him during the summer,” coach Bob Stoops said. “He’s a fifth-year senior and you grow up a lot in that time. He has a great understanding of our offense.”

White threw three touchdown passes, completed 23 of 35 passes for 248 yards and looked completely at ease in the pocket against North Texas in a 37-3 win.

He could’ve had another touchdown toss had tailback Renaldo Works not dropped a sure score as he ran toward the end zone.

Still, it wasn’t until his first smack on the knee from an opposing defender that White and the Sooners were certain that he’d be OK.

“You could see him take the hit and go, ‘OK, I’m fine. Let’s go,” offensive coordinator Chuck Long said. “You could have fully expected him to rush everything in his first game back. He didn’t.”

The injuries have sapped some of the quickness that once made White a unique running threat, forcing him to become a more studious, methodical quarterback. In the North Texas game, he patiently scanned the field to look for his third, and sometimes fourth, receiving options.

Against Alabama, however, he knows he’ll have to be even better.

The Crimson Tide will be waiting for White and the Sooners with an aggressive pass rush and a man-to-man scheme in the secondary. But with Alabama hiring and firing Mike Price and eventually replacing him with Mike Shula, the Sooners won’t get much insight from watching film from last season.

No sweat.

The Sooners aren’t keen on watching last year’s game anyway. Or, at least, certain parts of it.

“I don’t watch it,” Stoops said of the film sequence in which White gets injured. “I fast-forward it and go to the next play.”

Oklahoma can only hope that White does, too.