Oklahoma football: Forget about home-field advantage this season

Nobody knows better about the advantage of playing at home before your own passionate fans than the beloved fans of Oklahoma football.

Since 1999, Oklahoma’s home record at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium is a remarkable 119-10, a winning percentage of .922. In fact, the Sooners have more conference championships during that time (13) than home losses.

And this isn’t just a recent phenomenon. Oklahoma has been putting the fear in visiting football teams at the venue also known as Owen Field since 1923, the year the current stadium site opened. Since that time, the Sooners have compiled a home record of 401-87-16 (.812).

Beginning with the 1999 season, the year Bob Stoops became the Oklahoma head coach, the Sooners recorded 129 consecutive sellouts at a stadium that holds over 85,000 and is the 15th largest college stadium in the country. That’s a lot of fans attending every home game for 20 years.

The consecutive-game sellout streak was snapped last weekend when only 22,700 fans were permitted to attend the Oklahoma 2020 season opener against Missouri State because of social- distancing restrictions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sadly, that is the way its going to be this season, and OU is actually lucky. As long as conditions allow for it, and this will be determined by local and university health officials, only about 21,000 or 25 percent of capacity will be allowed to attend the four remaining Oklahoma home games this season. Some teams that are playing this fall are not allowing any fans in the stadium and other schools that are allowing fans aren’t fortunate to have as many in attendance as the Sooners.

Any way you look at it, this is a very different year with COVID altering all aspects of American life and social inequalities and racial injustice issues .commanding national attention.

This is going to be a college football season like no other. A little more than a month ago, there were many doubting there would even be a 2020 college season. Two major conferences, the Big Ten and Pac-12, voted not to play in the fall and said they would consider playing in the spring of 2021 instead.

The Big Ten has since reversed that decision, but there is still great uncertainty about what course the season will take as COVID-19 outbreaks remain a threat to deplete player rosters and create disruptions to the season.

Players will tell you that a stadium full of partisan fan support provides an enormous amount of emotional and physical energy and can be a major boost to the home team, especially in close games. But with nearly empty stadiums this season, it will be very interesting to see how much that impacts teams playing at home and road teams playing games in typically tough road environments, such as at Oklahoma.

Lincoln Riley 18-1 over the past three seasons when the Sooners play at home. The one loss occurred in the 2017 season when Oklahoma was upset by Iowa State, 38-31.

A year ago, FanSided college football expert Brad Weiss ranked the top-25 college teams with best home field advantage. Oklahoma was ranked 17th. In my opinion that is lower than deserved, especially given OU’s home dominance the past 20 years. You can see the entire ranking by clicking here and judge for yourself.

Since the Big 12 has been in existence, Oklahoma is 10-1 at home against the Baylor Bears and 14-1 (.933) all-time in Norman. The Sooners will close the 2020 regular-season at home against Baylor on Dec. 5.

When Iowa State defeated the Sooners in 2017, it was only the fourth time in 89 years that the
Cyclones had won a game at Oklahoma. OU is 39-4-1 (.886) against Iowa State when playing at home, the Sooners’ best home record against a current Big 12 team.