Oklahoma football: Five best Sooner teams of all-time
By Chip Rouse
#3 2000 Oklahoma Sooners
For the first time in OU’s celebrated football history, the Sooners won 13 games in the 2000 season without suffering a single defeat.
Oklahoma began Bob Stoops’ second season as head coach ranked 19th in the country. The Sooners slowly moved up in the rankings with impressive double-digit wins in their first four games.
By the time of the annual Red River Showdown between Oklahoma and Texas, the Sooners had moved up nine spots to No. 10 in the national ranking. Beginning with game against Texas, OU would face the 11th-ranked Longhorns, No. 2 Kansas State and top-ranked Nebraska in three consecutive games.
The Sooners stunned Texas, defeating the Longhorns in a 63-14 runaway, then followed that up with a 41-31 road victory over Kansas State and a 31-14 win over Nebraska that moved Oklahoma to No. 1 in the country seven games into the 2000 season and for the first time since 1987.
Oklahoma would have several close calls the remainder of the season: a four-point win at Texas A&M, a 12-7 victory at Oklahoma State that wasn’t decided until the last play of the game, and a three-point victory in a rematch with Kansas State in the Big 12 Championship.
The Sooners won their first Big 12 championship and 39th conference championship. Quarterback Josh Heupel led an air assault that totaled 3,600 passing yards, and running back Quentin Griffin kept opposing defenses honest with close to 800 yards on the ground.
Despite being the top-ranked team in the country, the Sooners were not favored in the BCS Championship Game against No. 3 Florida State and Heisman Trophy winner Chris Weinke. In a game featuring two of the highest scoring teams in the country, it was the defenses that were the difference in the game, and OU’s was better than the Seminoles, resulting in an unusual final score of 13-2.
The Sooners ended a perfect season in a perfect way and with a near-perfect defensive performance in the national championship game. The payoff was Oklahoma’s seventh national championship and the first under head coach Bob Stoops.