Oklahoma football was a little later than some in joining the college football landscape, which this year celebrates its150th season, but the Sooners made up for lost time in a hurry.
Over the long and storied history of the sport, Oklahoma has firmly established its place among the best of the best.
Greatness is defined as a state of superiority, the ability to be better than all others. It is not something that is achieved in short spurts, but rather through consistently high performance over an extended continuum. That also describes the history of Oklahoma football.
Oklahoma’s 884 all-time wins and .723 winning percentage ranks fifth best in college football, and the Sooners’ 35,793 points scored is the most of any school. Moreover, their 652 wins since the end of World War II ranks No. 1 in the nation.
ESPN, with the diligent research and analysis support of its Stats and Info group, recently took on the challenge of ranking the top programs in the 150-year history of college football. The goal, they said, was to “honor the accomplishment of teams across 150 seasons and all divisions, while rewarding successful programs at the highest level in the sports’ most competitive era (the last 50 years).”
The primary criteria was winning games and winning championships, with weighting percentages applied to when in history the wins and championships occurred.
After going through all of that, the ESPN research ranked Oklahoma, with seven national championships to its credit, as the No. 4 college program all-time. The Sooners trailed only No. 1 Alabama, with 15 major college championships, Notre Dame, with 13 and Ohio State, 8.
Here is what the ESPN had to say about the Sooners No. 4 all-time ranking:
"“Oklahoma has rarely taken a year off from the top since Bud Wilkinson took over in 1947. From Wilkinson to Barry Switzer to Bob Stoops to the current head coach, Lincoln Riley of Muleshoe, Texas, the Sooners have done a great job of bring talent north from the rich soil of the Lone Star State. That’s how the state university of the state that ranks 28th in population has maintained its status among the sports’ elite for three-quarters of a century.”"
As a point of interest, OU currently lists 47 players from the state of Texas on its 114-man 2019 roster.
A few other compelling historical numbers that support Oklahoma’s elite standing as one of the best of the best in the history of college football:
48 conference championships
47 consecutive wins (1953-57), an NCAA record
39 seasons of 10 or more wins (No. 1 in the nation)
29 bowl championships
25 seasons of 11 or more wins (No. 1 in the nation
14 undefeated seasons
12 losing seasons out of 124
Rounding out the top 10 in the ESPN ranking of the 50 best college football programs over 150 years, USC was No. 5, followed by Michigan, Yale, Nebraska, Texas and North Dakota State.
Aside from Oklahoma and Texas, West Virginia i