What Oklahoma Football Has More of Than Any Other FBS Team
By Chip Rouse
Dynasties in college football – or anywhere in college athletics, for that matter – are far less prevalent today than they were in the early years of the game and around the middle of the last century. The rich heritage and longtime success of Oklahoma football sits firmly on a foundation built by one of the greatest football dynasties of all time.
Oklahoma’s 47-game winning streak, crafted over almost five seasons by Bud Wilkinson’s great Sooner teams of the mid-1950s (1953-57) is perhaps the single best definition of a dynasty that exists in college football.
In 115 games during the decade of the ’50s, Oklahoma won 93 games, lost just 10 and played to a deadlock twice for an almost unbelievable .895 winning percentage. The Sooners also won three national championships over that 10-year period. Call it what you will, but if that isn’t the quintessence of a dynasty, I don’t know what is.
Since the end of World War II, what some refer to as the modern era of college football, no FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) or NCAA Division I school, has more wins than Oklahoma. Since 1946, the Sooners have posted a total 617 wins. That is 45 more than the next closest team, Ohio State, which has 572 wins over that time span. Nebraska ranks third with 571 wins between 1946 and 2015, Penn State is third with 568 wins, Texas fifth with 567 and Alabama sixth with 566.
Most early preseason top-25 polls have the Sooners ranked in the top five to begin the 2016 season. Another area in which Oklahoma tops all college teams is the number of times the Sooners have been ranked in the top five in the Associated Press Top-25 poll.
According to information provided by the University of Oklahoma athletic department, since the AP Top-25 college football bowl first appeared in 1936, the Sooners have ranked as one of the top five teams for a total of 392 weeks.
Until the 2015 season, Oklahoma topped all major college teams in the number of week’s ranked No. 1 in the country in the AP poll.
Ohio State ranked No. 1 in the AP poll 10 of 16 weeks last season, moving the Buckeyes ahead of the Sooners with a total of 105 weeks at No. 1. Oklahoma has been ranked No. 1 in the AP weekly poll for 101 weeks, but last appeared in the top spot in that poll in Week 16 of the 2008 season before the Sooners played Florida in the BCS national championship game.