Oklahoma football: 1950 national championship rooted in 1949 Sooners

When we think of Bud Wilkinson’s great Oklahoma football teams, those of us who are old enough to remember automatically flash back to the 1950s.

After all, Oklahoma won three national championships and 10 conference championships in the decade of the ’50s, and along the way produced winning streaks of 31 and 47 games, the latter of which still stands as an NCAA record. So when thinking about Wilkinson and his best Oklahoma teams, it would seem logical to look first at the great Sooners teams from 1950 to 1956, and you could even stretch it a bit further to 1957 and ’58.

Only, by following that line of logic you would be overlooking perhaps the best of all the Oklahoma teams who played for Wilkinson, the legendary head coach who is credited more than anybody for transforming Oklahoma football into a national power. Ironically, I am guilty of that very same lapse of judgement.

In a slideshow article posted on Tuesday this week, I ranked what I consider to be the greatest teams of the Wilkinson-Switzer-Stoops eras of Oklahoma football. The 1949 Sooner team was not among them. In retrospect, it rightfully should be.

A reader pointed this out to me, and I am thankful he did so. First of all, it shows that people are reading the material and, more importantly, it enables me to humbly make right an untenable oversight on my part.

I fell into the trap of overlooking the first three seasons of Wilkinson’s time at Oklahoma, all of which came before 1950.

I’m not sure where the 1949 Sooners rightfully belong in the ranking of the 10 best teams from the three greatest coaching eras in Oklahoma storied football history, but I’m pretty sure they should fall somewhere Between No. 2 and No. 6.

Wilkinson’s first three OU teams (1947-49) produced a better combined record than his Sooner teams did the following three years (1950-52). His teams in the three seasons prior to 1950 were 28-3-1 overall. In the three-year span from 1950-52, including the 1950 national championship season, the Sooners were a collective 26-4-1.

The best of those teams in the first three years of Wilkinson’s head-coaching reign at OU was, without question, the 1949 team. And you could make a good case that the 1949 Sooners were one of the two or three best Oklahoma teams under Wilkinson.

The Sooners were 11-0 in 1949, Wilkinson’s first undefeated team. As were most Oklahoma teams the second half of the 20th century, the 1949 team was a strong believer in keeping the ball on the ground and pounding away at opposing defenses. The Sooners went to their running game with great frequency and with great efficiency, averaging 320 rushing yards per game that season. George Thomas and Lindell Pearson combined for 1,612 yards on the ground and Leon Heath added 684 more. The same trio combined for 25 rushing touchdowns.

Darrell Royal was the quarterback of the 1949 Oklahoma team, and was one of five Sooners to earn All-America status that season.

While the 1949 Sooners punished their opponents on offense, they may have been even better on defense. The OU defense registered five shutouts that season and held two other opponents to just seven points. One of those shutouts was a 35-0 blanking of a very good Louisiana State team in the Sugar Bowl that season.

The Sooners outscored their 11 1949 opponents by a combined score of  399-88.

Oklahoma finished the 1949 season ranked No. 2 in the Associated Press poll. They might have been No. 1 and played for the national championship that season, except for the fact that Notre Dame also was undefeated and had been ranked No. 1 since the second week of the season.