The Oklahoma football series with Kansas State consists of 101 games over 112 years, the fourth longest of any Sooner opponent.
The first game between Oklahoma and Kansas State was held in 1908 with the Sooners winning 33-4. Oklahoma had lost to Kansas, 11-0, the week before. The Sooners finished 8-1-1 that season, their winningest season in just their 13th year of varsity football.
Oklahoma won the first three games in the series, but the first 10 games proved to be highly competitive with the Sooners winning four, Kansas State three and three games ended in identical scores of 7-7.
Oklahoma’s dominance in the series with K-State began in the late 1930s. From 1937 to 1992, a span of 56 years, the Sooners’ record against Kansas State was an incredible 54-2. Bud Wilkinson and Barry Switzer never lost to Kansas State during their head-coaching eras at OU. Wilkinson was 17-0 and Switzer’s OU teams were 16-0 against the Wildcats.
Interestingly, beginning in 1993, after going 54-2 over the previous 56 games, the Sooners lost six games in a row to K-State.
Since 2012, when No. 6-ranked Oklahoma lost to No. 15 Kansas State 24-19, the series between these two longtime conference foes has been fairly even, with the Sooners holding a slim 5-4 advantage.
Oklahoma has lost just 16 games in the regular season since 2012, and four of those have been to K-State, including each of the last two seasons. The Sooners have lost just 12 times at Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium since the 1999 season and three of those have been to Kansas State.
Oklahoma and Kansas State have met twice for the Big 12 Championship, in 2000 and again in 2003. The Sooners won in 2000 on their way to their seventh national championship. K-State upset the No. 1-ranked Sooners in 2003 by the stunning score of 35-7. Quarterback El Roberson threw four touchdown passes in that game, and Darren Sproles, who later played 15 seasons in the NFL, ran for 235 yards.
When Bob Stoops took over the head coach’s job at Oklahoma in 1999, himself a former Kansas State assistant under Bill Snyder, he brought K-State assistants Mike Stoops, Mark Mangino and Brent Venables with him to Oklahoma. Stoops was 10-3 against his former team while at OU.
In the game last year, Kansas State overcame a 35-14 deficit with just under three minutes remaining in the third quarter, scoring 24 unanswered points the rest of the way to stun the Sooners, ranked No, 3 in the nation at the time, on their home turf.