Oklahoma football: The Mount Rushmore of all-time Sooner quarterbacks
By Chip Rouse
Jack Mildren (1969-1971)
Former OU head coach Barry Switzer will tell you that Oklahoma may not have invented the wishbone offense, but the Sooners were the ones who perfected it. Jack Mildren was the first of the Oklahoma wishbone quarterbacks, and he will forever be known as the “Godfather of the Wishbone,” at least insofar as Oklahoma football history.
Mildren was the quarterback at Oklahoma between 1969 and 1971. The Sooners were just 6-4 in his sophomore season, the third season under head coach Chuck Fairbanks.
Following a 23-14 home loss to Oregon State, the Sooners had two weeks off before the annual Red River rivalry game with Texas. Fairbanks gave offensive coordinator Switzer the go ahead during that time off to install the wishbone offense. The novelty didn’t work out all that well against Texas, as OU fell 41-9 to the No. 2-ranked Longhorns.
The Sooners’ learning curve was a quick one, though, as Switzer’s newly installed triple-option offense produced a 5-2-1 record the rest of the way in 1970.
The following season is when things really took off for Mildren and Oklahoma. In his senior season in 1971, Mildren led a Sooner offense that averaged 472 rushing yards per game. He set a quarterback record at OU with 1,289 yards of his own. He also set what at that time was a school passing record with 28 career touchdown passes (remember, the Sooners didn’t pass the ball very much during that era).
Mildren was the Oklahoma quarterback in what at the time was billed as the “Game of the Century,” the 1971 game between OU and Nebraska, pitting the No. 1 Cornhuskers against No. 2 Oklahoma. That was the only game the Sooners would lose all season. They finished off an 11-1 season with a convincing 40-22 victory over Auburn in the Sugar Bowl. Mildren was named the MVP of that game.
Oklahoma’s All-American quarterback was named an All-American in the 1971 season. He was a second-round choice of the Baltimore Colts in the 1972 NFL Draft. The Colts converted Mildren to defensive back, recognizing his athleticism.
After football, Milden got into politics. In 1990 he became Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma. He ran for governor in 1994, but lost to Frank Keating.
Fairbanks called Mildren the perfect college athlete. He said he had great athletic ability and was a tough-minded leader, competitor and student. Berry Tramel, longtime sports columnist for The Oklahoman newspaper, called Mildren “OU’s best quarterback ever.”
Joe Wylie, who was in the backfield with Mildren as a halfback, said this to Tramel following Mildren’s death in 2008, at age 58, from stomach cancer:
"“If you were in the Army, he (Mildren) would be the general. And everybody knew he was the general.”"