Oklahoma football: Numbers to know from a successful 2018 season
By Chip Rouse
Oklahoma football fell short in its bid for a 2018 national championship, but the Sooners did finish the season as college football’s No. 1 team in scoring offense and total offense.
For the second consecutive Oklahoma won 12 games under head coach Lincoln Riley. Only six other FBS teams won that many games this season. That is the most over the first two seasons of any other OU head coach in football, and their have been a string of great ones down through the years.
Yes, Oklahoma lost in a College Football Playoff semifinal game for the third time in the last four seasons, but that doesn’t take away from what otherwise was another highly successful Oklahoma football season.
Twelve-win seasons are few and far between in college football. The Sooners have posted eight of them since the 2000 OU national championship season, which ironically was Stoops’ second season at the helm of the Sooner football program. In six of those eight seasons, Oklahoma either played for the national championship (2000, 2003, 2004 and 2008) or was one of the four teams that made it into the College Football Playoff (2017, 2018). OU is a disappointing 1-5 in those championship contests.
This was the 39th season in Oklahoma’s storied football history that the Sooners have won at least 10 games. That also ranks first among all college teams.
Here are a dozen more highly notable numbers that provide a reflection of the kind of season its was for Oklahoma football in 2018:
1 — Oklahoma is the first team in college football history to produce a 4,000-yard passer (Kyler Murray), two 1,000-yard rushers (Kennedy Brooks and Murray) and two 1,000-yard receivers (Marquise Brown and CeeDee Lamb).
4 — This year’s Big 12 championship was Oklahoma’s fourth consecutive and 12th overall. The next closest team is Texas with three.
5 — For the first time in Oklahoma history, five different players scored at least 10 touchdowns in 2018.
7 — All seven of OU’s home games this season at Gaylord Family–Oklahoma Memorial Stadium have been sellouts (capacity 86,112), extending the Sooners’ consecutive number of home sellouts to 123, dating back to the opening game of the 1999 season.
7 — Kyler Murray became Oklahoma’s seventh Heisman Trophy winner, edging Tua Tagovailoa of Alabama in one of the closest Heisman votes ever. The Sooners also claimed the Heisman in 2017, when QB Baker Mayfield won the award. OU’s seven Heisman winners ties Ohio State and Notre Dame for the most by any school.
9 — Oklahoma gained over 500 yards of offense in all nine of its Big 12 games this season. No other team in FBS history has done this.
51 — Touchdowns accounted for by Kyler Murray in 2018 (40 passing and 11 rushing).
51.1 — Oklahoma’s third-down conversion success rate this season, fifth-best in the country.
247.4 — Oklahoma averaged 247.4 rushing yards per game in the 2018 season, tops in the Big 12 and 11th-best nationally.
453.8 — Average yards of total defense allowed by the Sooners this season. That ranked 115th out of 129 FBS teams
499 — Senior all-purpose kicker Austin Seibert set a school record with 138 points in 2018 and an NCAA career record for points scored (499).
4,000/1,000 — Quarterback Kyler Murray became the first OU player, and only the second in college football history, to throw for 4,000 or more yards and run for 1,000 more in the same season. Deshaun Watson of Clemson is the other, in 2015.
Statistical data contained in this article was sourced, in part, from information provided by the OU athletic department.