Oklahoma football: Ranking the all-time, top-10 Sooner QBs
By Chip Rouse
No. 9 — Darrell Royal, Oklahoma quarterback (1946-49)
Darrell Royal will forever be remembered as the head coach and later as the longtime athletic director at the University of Texas. Before that, however, he was an All-American quarterback at Oklahoma.
As most players of that era did, Royal played both ways, on offense at quarterback and as a defensive back on that side of the ball. He was the quintessence of an all-around player. In addition to playing quarterback and defensive back, he also was an outstanding punter and was an all-conference punt returner.
Royal still holds the OU career record for interceptions with 17.
In 1949, the year after Jack Mitchell became the first Sooner quarterback to earn All-America honors, Royal achieved the same. That year, Royal completed 39 of 62 pass attempts (they didn’t put the ball in the air much at that time) for a total of 509 passing yards, with one interception.
The 1949 Sooners completed a perfect season with an 11-0 record.
Royal became the head coach at Texas in 1957. He was on the Longhorn sidelines for Texas’ first three undisputed national championships (1963, 1969 and 1970). In 1962, he assumed the athletic director’s duties in addition to coaching the football team.
In Royal’s 20 season as head coach at Texas, the Longhorns won 184 games, lost 60 and played to five ties.
He coached Texas in 20 Red River rivalry games against Oklahoma. The Longhorns won 12 of those games, OU won seven and one ended in a tie. The two longtime rivals split their four games while Royal was a Sooner.
In 1992, the former Oklahoma All-American was inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame.
Royal died in 2012 of complications from Alzheimer’s disease.