Oklahoma football throwback: What’s the biggest rushing game in OU history?

When you think of the high-scoring Oklahoma football offense today, the mental image that comes to mind is of a wide-open, spread-formation passing attack with an ample number of run plays blended in to keep opposing defenses honest.

Back in the days of the Wishbone offense, however, putting the ball in the air was considered a cardinal offense. The Sooners were lucky to throw as many as 10 passes in a game, relying instead on a punishing triple-option run game that was difficult to slow down, let alone stop, and chewed up big chunks of clock time.

On Oct. 15, 1988, a capacity crowd of over 73,000 filled Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman for a Saturday afternoon exhibition against a hapless Kansas State team that had won just three games total in the previous three seasons and was one year away from the arrival of Bill Snyder, the man who turned around the program that Sports Illustrated was calling at the time the worst in college football.

It was Barry Switzer’s last season after 16 as the Oklahoma head coach, and that didn’t help K-State’s chances, either. By halftime, Oklahoma had put 49 points on the board, or, as Switzer like to say, “We hung a half-a-hundred on ’em.”

This is how Kansas State head coach Stan Parrish, at the time, described the opening half to reporters and recalled recently by 247Sports OU Insider Joey Helmer:

"“(It) was like a trip to the dentist for four root canals with no Novocain.”"

It was 56-0 before the Wildcats finally struck paydirt. After that, the Sooners took off the gloves and let off the gas a little, but still managed to win by an eight-touchdown margin, 70-24.

Oklahoma played its home games on artificial turf in those days, or I’m sure the grounds crew would have had its hands full repairing the scorched earth.

Oklahoma ran 86 plays in the game, and 72 of them were running plays around, through and by the Kansas State defenders. By game’s end, the Sooners had amassed what is still a school- and NCAA-record 768 rushing yards, averaging nearly 11 yards per carry. and 829 yards of total offense.

That 1988 offensive performance is the third most in school history, eclipsed only by an 875-yard performance eight years earlier against Colorado and 854 yards in the epic quarterback battle in 2017 between Baker Mayfield and Texas Tech’s Patrick Mahomes.

Oklahoma finished the 1988 season with a 9-3 record, losing the final two games, to longtime rival Nebraska and to Clemson in the Capitol One Bowl.