Stormin in Norman
Fansided

Oklahoma football: Mount Rushmore 10 of Sooner GOATS of modern era

By Chip Rouse

KEYSTONE, SOUTH DAKOTA - JULY 02: The busts of U.S. presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln tower over the Black Hills at Mount Rushmore National Monument on July 02, 2020 near Keystone, South Dakota. President Donald Trump is expected to visit the monument and speak before the start of a fireworks display on July 3. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
KEYSTONE, SOUTH DAKOTA - JULY 02: The busts of U.S. presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln tower over the Black Hills at Mount Rushmore National Monument on July 02, 2020 near Keystone, South Dakota. President Donald Trump is expected to visit the monument and speak before the start of a fireworks display on July 3. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
1 of 12
Next

When you go about the highly arduous task of not just identifying but ranking the greatest players of all time to wear the Oklahoma football uniform, the problem is where to cut if off.

In fact, when you’re talking about a program that is a blue-blood national power like Oklahoma and one of the top-10 winningest college teams of all time with over 160 first-team All-Americans to its credit, the list of great players to choose from is nearly overwhelming.

I have combed through the annals and combined my nearly 70 years of being a passionate fan of Oklahoma football to come up with a top-10 list of who I believe are the 10 greatest players in the modern era of Sooner football, which covers the period from the Bud Wilkinson era to the present (1947-2021), 75 mostly glorious years of Oklahoma football history.

There are some very recognizable names on this top-10 list: Sooner all-time greats like Joe Washington, Adrian Peterson and Lee Roy Selmon and even some names that only the older Oklahoma fans will remember. Who will rank No. 1 and who will rank where in the top-10 countdown?

By way of disclaimer — because I fully acknowledge there will be many who disagree with both the list as well as the ranking — career performance numbers while at OU were just a part of my evaluation process. I also considered the player’s contributions to the Sooners’ success, his popularity with the fans, as well as his character away from the football field. Everyone included in this ranking was an All-American one or more times during his Oklahoma career.

With that out of the way, allow me to present who I believe are the 10 greatest players in modern Oklahoma football history:

Home/OU Football