Oklahoma football: Twenty years ago today OU won its 7th national title

It was 20 years ago today that Oklahoma football officially rendered notice it was back in its rightful place among college football’s elite programs.

On January 4, 2001, the Sooners surprised the college football world by defeating Florida State 13-2 to capture the most recent of Oklahoma’s seven national championships.

Oklahoma took the field at the Orange Bowl in Miami undefeated on the season, a perfect 12-0, and the top-ranked team in the country, yet the Las Vegas oddsmakers had the Sooners as the underdog coming into the game.

Bob Stoops’ was in his second season as the Oklahoma head coach. Many thought this was a risky hire since this was Stoops’ first head-coaching assignment, although he had proven himself as one of the best young defensive minds in the college game and had had success at both Kansas State and Florida as a defensive coordinator.

Unlike Lincoln Riley, who took over as the Sooners’ head coach in 2017 from Stoops, who became the winningest head coaches in OU’s illustrious football history, the team that Stoops inherited in 1999 was in shambles. The three seasons before Stoops took over, Oklahoma was 12-22 and an unthinkable 8-16 the first three years of the Big 12 era.

Oklahoma improved to above .500 in Stoops’ first season, winning seven of its 12 games and going 5-3 in conference play. Things were definitely looking up in Sooner Nation.

Then came the 2000 season. Everyone knew that Oklahoma football was back on the upswing, but no one predicted that the turnaround would be as dramatic or come as quickly as it did.

Read about the 2000 season in more vivid detail in this article posted at soonersports.com.

The Sooners began the 2000 season as the nation’s 19th ranked team, the highest they had been ranked since the beginning of the 1995 season. OU won its first four games that season by an average margin of 30 points. Then came a three-game stretch that would define Oklahoma’s 2000 season. First up was the annual Red River Rivalry game with Texas.

“You know what, boys? We’re pretty good.” –OU head coach Bob Stoops during his team’s 49-point win over Texas in 2000 season

The Sooners jumped on their archrival early and often, and with five minutes remaining in the first half, Oklahoma had taken a 42-0 lead over 10th-ranked Texas. Oklahoma went on to win 63-14, and Stoops remembers telling his assistants over the headphones that day, “You know what boys? We’re pretty good.”

The following week, Stoops and his Sooner troops returned to the OU head coach’s former stomping grounds and a game against No. 2-ranked Kansas State. Oklahoma prevailed 41-31, improving its record to 6-0.

The Sooners had an extra week to savor the win over K-State and get ready to host the No. 1 team in the nation, another longtime OU rival, the Nebraska Cornhuskers. who would bring to Norman the country’s top offense.

Nebraska wasted little time displaying that offensive firepower, racing out to a 14-0 advantage in the opening seven minutes of the game. But that would be the final points the Cornhuskers would tally that afternoon as the Oklahoma defense stiffened and the Sooner offense did the rest. The Sooners scored 31 unanswered points and knocked off the No. 1 Huskers 31-14 in front of a sold out and out of their minds Oklahoma home crowd.

The following week, the cover of Sports Illustrated displayed the image of diminutive OU running back Quentin Griffin along with the headline: “Back on Top.”

The Sooners, having moved from No. 10 to 8 to 3 in a matter of three weeks, replaced Nebraska in the No. 1 spot and remained there for the rest of the magical 2000 season.

Oklahoma would endure a scare at Texas A&M, having to come-from-behind late to pull out a four-point win and a five-point win at Oklahoma State, but finished the regular season with an unblemished record.

The Sooners had to face Kansas State for a second time that season in the Big 12 Championship game. That contest was much closer than the regular season encounter, but Oklahoma pulled away in the second half and held on for a 27-24 victory and what would be the first of 10 conference championship the Sooners would win under Stoops.

That set up the national championship game between No. 1 Oklahoma and No. 3 Florida State.

As good as the Sooner offense was that season, it was the OU defense that came through against the favored Seminoles and Heisman Trophy winner, Chris Weinke, the FSU quarterback. The Sooners put pressure on Weinke the entire game, forcing him into bad decisions, including two interceptions.

A first-quarter field goal by OU’s Tim Duncan was the only scoring in the first half. Duncan added another field goal in the third quarter, and the fourth quarter began with the Sooners’ holding on to a precarious 6-0 lead.

With just under nine minutes to go, Quentin Griffin scored the clinching touchdown on a 10-yard run. FSU’s only points came on a safety with under a minute to play.

And the celebration began.

Although Oklahoma has had a number of opportunities since then to relive a national championship experience and add an eighth piece of national hardware to its trophy case — three other BCS national championship appearances and four trips to the College Football Playoff since the 2000 season — that elusive eighth national crown has alluded the Sooners.

Maybe next year…