Oklahoma football: Sooners have owned West Virginia in Big 12

The Oklahoma football series with West Virginia, the Sooners’ opponent this Saturday, is a mere 12 games long.

Before the Mountaineers became members of the Big 12 Conference in 2012, the two schools had faced each other in football a total of just four times. West Virginia visited Norman, Oklahoma, three separate times before joining the Big 12.

The very first game between Oklahoma and West Virginia was in 1958. The Sooners, ranked No. 2 in the country and coached at that time by the legendary Bud Wilkinson, won that inaugural meeting fairly easily, 47-14.

The two schools met a second time 20 years later, in 1978. Again, the venue was Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman. Barry Switzer was the Sooners’ head coach at that time, and the results were similar to the initial meeting. No. 3-ranked Oklahoma hung half-a-hundred, as Switzer liked to say, on the overmatched Mountaineers, who came in unranked. The Sooners won the game 52-10.

Mountaineers’ even all-time series with Oklahoma

In 1982, ninth-ranked Oklahoma opened the season at home against an unranked West Virginia team that was coming off a 9-3 season the year before, including a Peach Bowl win over Florida. Switzer’s Sooners had won nine-straight season openers.

Oklahoma scored on its opening possession and followed that up with a second scoring drive the second time it had the ball. But then the Sooner offense went stagnant, and the Mountaineers put 20 unanswered points on the scoreboard to take a shocking 20-14 lead into halftime.

The Sooners would come out after halftime and score a touchdown to reclaim the lead at 21-20, but Oklahoma was only to add one more score the rest of the way as West Virginia quarterback Jeff Hosteller threw for 321 yards and four touchdowns and the Mountaineers stunned OU 41-27. It was the first time Oklahoma had started a season 0-1 since 1968.

The Sooners and Mountaineers would cross paths one more time before West Virginia became part of the Big 12. The two teams met in January 2008 in the Fiesta Bowl. Bob Stoops was the Sooners’ head coach in this game, his ninth season at the helm.

OU came in as the Big 12 champion and the No. 3 team in the country. West Virginia was no slouch, either, checking in at No. 11 in the Associated Press poll. Oklahoma and quarterback Sam Bradford were the favorites in the game, but you would have never known it the way West Virginia dominated the Sooners.

Oklahoma was never in the game, falling behind 20-6 at halftime. The Sooners scored the first nine points of the second half, but the Mountaineers countered with a pair of third-quarter touchdowns and a couple more in the fourth quarter to win going away, 48-28. West Virginia gained 349 rushing yards and 525 yards total against the OU defense in handing Oklahoma just its third loss of the season.

Oklahoma 8-0 vs. West Virginia in the Big 12

Since West Virginia has been a member of the Big 12, it’s been all Oklahoma in this series. The two teams have met eight times as conference foes, and the Sooners have yet to lose to the Mountaineers.

Perhaps the most memorable game between the two schools as members of the Big 12 was in 2018, when OU’s Kyler Murray and West Virginia quarterback Will Grier battled in a 59-56 slugfest eventually won by Oklahoma. The game was played at night at West Virginia on Thanksgiving weekend. The winner earned the right to face Texas in the Big 12 championship game the following weekend.

The game went back and forth and up and down the field, especially in the second half. Defense was virtually nonexistent in this shootout. The game turned early in the fourth quarter when OU linebacker Curtis Bolton scooped by a fumble by West Virginia’s Grier and rumbled 48 yard for a touchdown to stretch a three-point Oklahoma advantage to 10 points, at 59-49, and the Sooners held on from there.

The two teams produced a total of 111 points and 1,372 yards of offense in the game (704 by West Virginia, 668 by Oklahoma).

I doubt we will see that kind of offensive explosion on Saturday, but the thing that should be troublesome for Sooner fans is that West Virginia is playing very well right now, has an outstanding defense and, most importantly, is overdue against Oklahoma.