Oklahoma vs. Kansas: Three Classic Contests in the Series
By Chip Rouse
Oklahoma vs. Kansas has appeared on the Sooners’ football schedule in 106 of the 121 years Oklahoma has been playing the sport.
This is the third longest continuing series in OU football history. Only Oklahoma State (115) and Texas (111) have played the Sooners more often in football than the Jayhawks.
The first game between these two longtime conference foes was in 1903. The game was at Kansas, with the Jayhawks coming out on top, 17-5. The Sooners would also lose the next seven games with Kansas (1904-1910), failing to score in six of the seven contests.
The Jayhawks won the first eight games in the series, but have won just 19 of the 104 games since.
The longest win streak in the series was 12 games by Oklahoma between 1948 and 1959, all under the legendary Bud Wilkinson. Bookending both ends of those 12 consecutive victories by the Sooners were tie games, in 1947 and again in1960, in which the two schools fought to a tie, both by the identical 13-13 score.
Since 1950, Oklahoma’s record against the Jayhawks is 50-8-1. The three winningest Sooner coaches of the modern era (Wilkinson, Barry Switzer and Bob Stoops) are a combined 39-3-2 vs. Kansas.
Something that has relevance for this year’s game, aside from the fact that Kansas has won just 12 times in 51 games played in Norman, is that an unranked Jayhawk squad has beaten a ranked Oklahoma team just three times since the Associated Press college football rankings were established in 1936. Oklahoma comes into Saturday’s game ranked 16th in the current AP Top 25.
Although the century-old series has been heavily dominated by Oklahoma, and many by wide score margins, there have been a several notable games that may have appeared completely one-sided going in but certainly did not play out that way.
We’ve identified three of them for you:
October 17, 1964 – Kansas 15, Oklahoma 14
Oklahoma and Kansas met in the Sooners’ fourth game of the 1964 season. OU was coming off the annual Red River rivalry game with Texas, which resulted in a 28-7 loss for the Sooners, their seven consecutive defeat to their hated rivals from the Lone Star State.
The game was played at Kansas, and I remember it like the back of my hand because I there in person, one of the 44,000 watching from the stands at Kansas Memorial Stadium in Lawrence. It was a beautiful fall afternoon, and the visiting Sooners were heavy favorites, despite coming in with a 1-2 record after back-to-back losses to USC and No. 1-ranked Texas.
All-American and NFL Hall of Famer Gayle Sayers fielded the opening kickoff and thrilled the partisan Kansas crowd with a dazzling 93-yard return for a touchdown, which put the Jayhawks up 7-0 early.
Following Sayers’ TD kickoff return, the Sooners controlled the game for well over three quarters, but they were only able to put 14 points on the board. Kansas did not cross midfield into OU territory until the fourth quarter.
The Sooners, faced with a fourth-and-one from the Kansas 44-yard line late in the fourth quarter, for some inexplicable reason elected to punt the ball rather than go for it on fourth down and potentially seal away the game.
Sayers fielded the punt and went out of bounds at the Kansas eight-yard-line. Quarterback Bob Skahan led Kansas on a 90-plus-yard drive that got the Jayhawks inside the Sooner 10-yard line with just seconds remaining in the game.
On the game’s final play, Skahan, unable to spot any open receivers in the end zone, took the ball in himself for a Kansas touchdown.
Jayhawk coach Jack Mitchell, who played his collegiate football at Oklahoma elected not to kick the extra point for a tie and instead went for a two-point conversion and the win.
The two-point try was successful, and Kansas upset Oklahoma, 15-14, beating the Sooners for the first time since 1946. And they did so by scoring on the first play of the game and the final play. Everything in between was all Oklahoma, but it wasn’t enough on this fall afternoon in 1964.
November 8, 1975 – Kansas 23, Oklahoma 3
Oklahoma, the reigning national champions, according to the Associated Press poll in 1974, was the preseason No. 1 team to start the 1975 season. When they faced Kansas in Norman in the ninth game in 1975, the Sooners were 8-0 and ranked No. 2 in the country.
Barry Switzer was in his third full season as the Oklahoma head coach. The Jayhawks were running a Wishbone offense, like OU’s, with a converted defensive back, Nolan Cromwell (who later went on to an NFL career), operating at point in Kansas’ triple-option offense.
Kansas surprised the Sooners, holding down the high-scoring OU offense and taking a 7-3 lead into halftime. There was upset alert written all over this one after the opening 30 minutes.
The roof caved in on the second-ranked Sooners in the third quarter, as the Jayhawks forced eight – that’s right, eight – Oklahoma turnovers (four on interceptions plus four fumbles).
Oklahoma outgained the Jayhawks 338 to 235, but could not overcome the eight turnovers and another yards in penalties. Kansas scored nine points in the third quarter and added a touchdown in the fourth to bury the Sooners in a 23-3 upset.
Ironically, this was the only game Oklahoma would lose in 1975 and was their first loss dating all the way back to mid-October 1972. The Sooners finished the 1975 season with a 14-6 win over Michigan in the Orange Bowl and a repeat as national champions.
October 27, 1984 – Kansas 28, Oklahoma 11
It had been 20 years since Oklahoma last lost a game at Kansas. During that time, the Sooners had made nine trips to Lawrence, Kan., and come away with nine wins. There were some close games at Kansas over that time – a four-point OU win in 1970, a two-point victory in 1980 and a narrow, one-point decision in 1978 – but the Sooners had always come out on top.
Oklahoma was 5-0-1 , when it was time to play Kansas in 1984, and the Sooners were again highly ranked, at No. 2 in the Associated Press poll. The tie was against top-ranked Texas. Kansas was a team headed in the opposite direction from that of the Sooners. The Jayhawks were 2-5 at the time this game was played.
The heavily favored Sooners struck first with a first-quarter field goal. Little did Oklahoma know at the time that that would be the only Sooner score until the final three seconds of the ball game. Following the OU field goal, the Jayhawks would score the next 28 points before Oklahoma was able to push across a meaningless touchdown as time ran down on the clock.
The Sooners would lose one more time that season, 28-17 to Washington in the Orange Bowl, and finish the 1984 season with a 9-2 overall record, 6-1 in the Big Eight and as conference champions.
People who closely follow Kansas Jayhawks sports have rated the 1984 Oklahoma game as one of the top three upset wins in Kansas football history.