Oklahoma football: Numbers to know about Sooners-Jayhawks
By Chip Rouse
Of all the games on the 2020 Oklahoma football schedule, Kansas stood out as the most winnable.
That’s hardly exclusive to the Sooners. That was probably the case with every other Big 12 team. The Jayhawks come to Norman this weekend looking for their first win of the season after six consecutive losses.
The Sooners’ 77 all-time wins over Kansas are the second most against any opponent, but Oklahoma’s winning percentage against the Jayhawks is lower than it is against every other current Big 12 team not named Texas.
Oklahoma is playing its first game at home since hosting the other team from the Sunflower State, Kansas State, on Sept. 26. The Sooners have played four straight games away from Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. That is a most unusual situation — that long a gap between home games has only happened three other times in OU football history — but what hasn’t been out of the ordinary for this strange 2020 year, including the college football season.
Kansas coach Les Miles, someone who is very familiar to the Oklahoma football program having coached at Oklahoma State for several seasons in the early 2000s, probably isn’t grateful he has to go play the Sooners in Norman, but he did note to reporters this week that the crowd noise would be much less of a factor than it normally is because of COVID-related crowd restrictions.
Earlier this week, in the Big 12 coaches’ teleconference, Miles had this to say about OU’s Palace on the Plains:
“That’s a great place. It’s a historic field. It sounds very much like the inside of a jet engine. That crowd’s loud.”
Because of social distancing measures to help protect against COVID-19 exposure, there will be approximately 65,000 fewer fans present for Saturday’s game, but that shouldn’t matter much, given the major talent disparity between the two programs.
Here some other numbers to know to get you ready for Saturday’s game between No. 19 Oklahoma and Kansas:
9 — Oklahoma’s 43.5 scoring average ranks ninth best among FBS teams. In their last three games, the Sooners have averaged 49.3 points per game, which leads the nation.
15 — Oklahoma has won 15 consecutive games against Kansas, its longest active winning streak over an opponent.
21 — Oklahoma has won 21 consecutive games in the month of November.
34:46 — The average time of possession this season for the OU offense. That ranks third nationally. The Sooners have won the time of possession in all six games this season.
42 — Number of days since the Sooners last played a home game in the 2020 season.
42-6 — The Sooners’ record against Kansas in football since the 1965 season.
43-14 — The average score in the last 15 games between the Sooners and Jayhawks.
44-6 — Oklahoma’s Big 12 record since the start of the 2015 season.