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Oklahoma Sooners: A Mount Rushmore of modern OU GOATs

By Chip Rouse

KEYSTONE, SD - OCTOBER 01: Mount Rushmore National Memorial towers over the South Dakota landscape on October 1, 2013 near Keystone, South Dakota. Mount Rushmore and all other national parks were closed today after congress failed to pass a temporary funding bill, forcing about 800,000 federal workers off the job. A bulletin issued by the Department of Interior states, 'Effective immediately upon a lapse in appropriations, the National Park Service will take all necessary steps to close and secure national park facilities and grounds in order to suspend all activities ...Day use visitors will be instructed to leave the park immediately...' (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
KEYSTONE, SD - OCTOBER 01: Mount Rushmore National Memorial towers over the South Dakota landscape on October 1, 2013 near Keystone, South Dakota. Mount Rushmore and all other national parks were closed today after congress failed to pass a temporary funding bill, forcing about 800,000 federal workers off the job. A bulletin issued by the Department of Interior states, 'Effective immediately upon a lapse in appropriations, the National Park Service will take all necessary steps to close and secure national park facilities and grounds in order to suspend all activities ...Day use visitors will be instructed to leave the park immediately...' (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) /
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Bud Wilkinson

Say what you will about the history of Oklahoma football, unequivocally the flagship of all University of Oklahoma athletic endeavors, but it is my humble opinion that one Charles Burnham “Bud” Wilkinson was the one who made Sooner football famous and fashionable and the national brand it is today.

OU head coach Jim Tatum persuaded Wilkinson to join his staff as an assistant in 1946. Wilkinson had been an assistant under Don Faurot with the Iowa Pre-Flight Seahawks while serving in the U.S. Navy. When Tatum left Oklahoma in 1947 to become head coach at Maryland, Wilkinson was elevated to head coach of the Sooners, his first head-coaching job, at the age of 31.

Over the next 17 seasons, Wilkinson’s teams would win 145 games and lose just 29 times, a winning percentage of .826, second best among the 22 head coaches in Oklahoma football history.

Even more impressive, Wilkinson led the Sooners to three national championships in a seven-year span (1950, 1955 and 1956). His teams won 14 conference championships, including the first 13 seasons he was in the job, and between 1953 and 1957, Oklahoma won 47 consecutive games, an NCAA record that still stands today.

Thirty-six OU All-Americans played under Wilkinson, and eight of his 17 Oklahoma teams won 10 or more games and 13 won eight or more. In eight postseason bowl appearances under Wilkinson, the Sooners fostered a record of 6-2.

Over an 11-year stretch from 1948 to 1958, Wilkinson’s record as head coach of the Sooners was an unprecedented 107-8-2.

Wilkinson stepped down as the Sooners head coach following the 1963 season. In addition to coaching football at Oklahoma, he served as  the school’s athletic director for 18 seasons, from 1947-64.

He served on the President’s Council on Physical Fitness from 1961-64, and in 1965 he joined ABC Sports as a color commentator on college football telecasts.

Wilkinson died in 1994 of congestive heart failure. He was 77 years old at the time of his death.

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