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Oklahoma football rewind: Bud Wilkinson owned the Big Seven Conference

By Chip Rouse

ARLINGTON, TX - DECEMBER 2: The Oklahoma Sooners take the field before playing the TCU Horned Frogs during the first half at AT
ARLINGTON, TX - DECEMBER 2: The Oklahoma Sooners take the field before playing the TCU Horned Frogs during the first half at AT /
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Most Oklahoma football fans over the age of 50 have heard the phrase “Oklahoma and the Seven dwarfs,” which of course refers to how the Sooner teams under the leadership of Bud Wilkinson dominated in the early years of the Big Eight Conference.

In the first three seasons of the Big Eight Conference (1957-59), Oklahoma won three consecutive conference crowns while compiling a combined record of 27-5 over those three seasons. Only one of those five losses came in a conference game.

As good as the Sooners were at that time, though, in the very early years of the Big Eight, it was nothing compared to the way they dominated the predecessor Big Seven Conference.

Oklahoma won the conference title in the final season (1947) of the Big Six Conference — which was also Wilkinson’s first season at OU — and followed that with nine consecutive Big Seven championships.

The Sooners were the only school to win a conference title in the nine-season existence of the Big Seven. Combined with the three league titles in the first three seasons of the Big Eight, Oklahoma claimed a dominating 13 consecutive conference championships.

Over those masterful oligarchical-like 13 seasons, Wilkinson’s Sooner teams put together a record of 121-13-3. Against conference opponents, OU was virtually unbeatable between 1947 and 1959, losing just once to go with two ties.

Between 1953 and 1957 was when Oklahoma ran off 47 consecutive wins, a remarkable achievement that still stands as an NCAA record and one that may never be broken

As a new decade dawned, Wilkinson’s 1960 OU team finished with a highly uncharacteristic 5-5 season record and fifth place in the Big Eight standings, the worst finish in Wilkinson’s 17 seasons heading the Sooner football program.

In Wilkinson’s final four seasons (1960-63), Oklahoma won 24 games. lost 16 and played to one tie. Certainly nothing to hang your head over — in fact, the Sooners won another conference championship, the 14th under Wilkinson — but compared to his first 13 seasons at OU, it represented a considerable drop-off.

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