OU Football: Five Reasons Things Have Never Been Better in Norman
By Chip Rouse
Filling in and up the Football Stadium with a New Modern Look
For better than half a century, visiting teams that have played at Oklahoma have referred to Owen Field as a snake pit, and with good reason. Guess what? It is still a snake pit for visiting teams. And a good looking one, at that.
Since 1923, when what is now Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium first opened at its present site, the Sooners have won 379 of the 478 games played there, or 80 percent of their home games.
Oklahoma has been virtually unbeaten since Bob Stoops became head coach in 1999. Since that time, the Sooners are 96-8 at home, representing one of the best home-field advantages in college football. In addition, in the Stoops era, Oklahoma has sold out 104 consecutive home games.
When the Sooners open their 2016 home season hosting the University of Louisiana-Monroe, fans will get their first look at a $160 million stadium renovation project that features an enclosed seating bowl at the south-end of the stadium, including an overhang above 22 suites and 66 loge boxes that are being installed this summer.
The expanded seating bowl will include an expanded concourse as well as additional restrooms and concessions. One of the unique features of the new south-end-zone facilities will be two open-air plazas, one each in the southeast and southwest corners.
The expansion at the south end of the stadium will add approximately 2,500 seats that will increase the stadium capacity to around 85,000, the second largest stadium in the Big 12 and one of the largest in the country.
A new 7,806-square-foot video scoreboard is being erected at the top of the stadium on the south end that is reported to be the second largest in the country.
The renovation work in the south end-zone area is phase I of a $370 million master stadium plan that will include other stadium upgrades, including an extensive expansion and remodeling of the press box area on the west side of the stadium.
Back in the early 1950s after Oklahoma had won its first national championship in football, then university president George L. Cross was asked one year by a member of the Oklahoma State Legislature what kind of football team OU was going to have that year. To which Cross famously quipped: “We want to build a university our football team can be proud of.”
Add in the prodigious Sooner fan base and the same can probably be said about the extensive modernization and renovation work going on and planned at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.
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