Oklahoma football throwback: 1938 was a defensive gem like no other

Oklahoma football has a long and storied history of winning seasons. In fact, in 124 seasons of collegiate football, the University of Oklahoma has had only 12 losing seasons.

In other words, the Sooners have been .500 or better in 112 of their 124 seasons of varsity football. Twenty-four times Oklahoma has posted 11 or more wins in a season, and 38 times the Sooners have won 11 or more in a season. Both are NCAA Division I records.

The Sooners rank fifth nationally in all-time winning percentage (.719) and seventh in all-time wins (896). The bottom line is OU wins may more football games than it loses.

The best way to avoid losing in football game is to prevent the other team from scoring. Something the Sooners have managed to do 245 times in their history, and the 1938 season was the poster child for this kind of defensive dominance.

More from OU Football

• Oklahoma football: ESPN, USA Today bowl projections after Week 3
• Oklahoma football: Sooner ‘D’ grading well, but real test begins with Big 12 play
• Two Oklahoma football players receive Big 12 weekly honors
• Oklahoma football: Sooners’ stock rising fast in ESPN prospective rankings
• Oklahoma football: Sooners leaving opponents in the dust early and often

Tom Stidham was the coach of the 1938 Sooner team, the 10th head coach in the school’s history. Oklahoma finished 10-1 that season, Stidham’s second as head coach, and was the Big Six Conference champion with a perfect 5-0 record.

In eight of the 10 Oklahoma victories in 1938, the Sooners held their opponent scoreless.

Ironically, in the one game OU lost that season, the Sooners were the team that failed to score, losing 17-0 to No. 2-ranked Tennessee in the Orange Bowl. That game also was significant because it was the very first bowl appearance by an Oklahoma football team.

The Sooners squeaked by Rice 7-6 in the season opener in 1938. They won their next three outings, all by shutout, before giving up six points in a 28-6 win over Tulsa. Oklahoma did not give up another score for five consecutive games until Tennessee scored a first-quarter touchdown in the Orange Bowl.

Oklahoma defeated its five Big Six opponents that season by the combined score of 90-0 on the way to winning its fourth conference championship and first as a member of the Big Six.

Flashing forward 81 years to 2019, shutouts in college football are far less common that they were in the first-half of the last century. The Oklahoma defense has not pitched a shutout in its last 48 games. The last time the Sooners held an opponent scoreless was in 2015, a 55-0 whitewash of Kansas State.

In 2018, Oklahoma ranked 101st nationally (out of 129 FBS teams) in scoring defense, allowing 33.3 points per game. In contrast, the 1938 Sooner team gave up just 2.07 points per game.

Somewhere in between lies an answer to Oklahoma’s recent defensive struggles.

Statistical information contained in this article was sourced from the 2018 Oklahoma Football Media Guide.