Oklahoma football: Sooners’ are seven-up in Heismans, national titles

Oklahoma football ranks high on the list of major historical accomplishments in the college game.

There are no bigger team or individual accolades in college football than winning a national championship or being honored as the most outstanding player in a given season. The University of Oklahoma has been privileged to put up a seven number in both columns.

OU’s seven national championships since 1936 (the first year a national champion was recognized by the Associated Press college football poll) is the third most of any school. The Sooners are tied with USC, one back of Notre Dame (8) and four fewer than Alabama (12), which has won five national championships in the last 10 seasons.

Four Oklahoma quarterbacks have won the Heisman Trophy in the last 15 seasons, including back-to-back Heisman winners in 2017 (Baker Mayfield) and 2018 (Kyler Murray). Prior to the 2003 season, the Heisman had been awarded to three Oklahoma players, all running backs, over a 26-year span (Billy Vessels, 1952, Steve Owens, 1969 and Billy Sims, 1978).

The Sooners are tied with Notre Dame and Ohio State, two college football blue bloods, for the most Heisman Trophies won.

Bud Wilkinson’s great Oklahoma teams of the 1950s put Sooner football on the national radar, winning three national championships over a period of seven years (1950, 1955 and 1956). In that decade alone, Oklahoma won 93 games, lost 10 and tied 2. Between 1953 and 1957, the Sooners won an NCAA-record 47 consecutive games. That is a record that may stand the test of time.

Barry Switzer also won three national titles, two in the 1970s (1974 and 1975) and a third in 1985.

It was 15 years between OU’s 1985 national title and the 2000 national championship season. And it was worth the wait, because the 2000 championship may be the sweetest. Not only did Bob Stoops’ Sooners finish a perfect 13-0 for the first time in program history, but they did so in Stoops’ second season as head coach and after finishing 7-5 overall the year before.

An intriguing side note to these two college football major milestones is none of the Oklahoma national championship or Heisman seasons coincided with one another.