Oklahoma football: Sooners have owned ISU all-time, but Saturday TBD
By Chip Rouse
For the overwhelming majority of the Oklahoma football series with Iowa State the more talented and tradition-laden Sooners have prevailed and by wide score margins.
The Sooners and Cyclones have met 86 times on the gridiron over 92 years, and Oklahoma has lost only seven times total. OU is 77-7-2 all time versus Iowa State, and it hasn’t really mattered whether the game was played in Norman or in Ames, Iowa.
Oklahoma’s .907 all-time winning percentage versus Iowa State is the best by any Power Five team against an opponent (in a series of at least 50 games). The Sooners are 39-4-1 in games played in Norman and have a similar record of success when the game is played at Iowa State (37-3-1).
As heavily lopsided the Oklahoma series with Iowa State appears, in the last five meetings between the two teams have resulted in a 3-2 Oklahoma edge, with all five games decided by 10 or fewer points, and one of those two Iowa State wins was in Norman (2017).
The average score of the past five games between the Sooners and Cyclones is 33.4 to 32.8. The 87 game in this longtime series on Saturday is also expected to be a close encounter. As this article is being written, Oklahoma is favored by four points (-4.0).
The series with Iowa State actually originated 92 years ago, in 1928. The inaugural game was played at Iowa State, with the cyclones prevailing 13-0. The Sooners would not lose again to Iowa State until 1960, a span of 28 games (there was a 7-7 tie in 1936).
Twice in the 92-year history of the series, Oklahoma has put together winning streaks of 27 games. Legendary OU head coach Bud Wilkinson was 15-2 against Iowa State, Barry Switzer was 15-0-1 against the Cyclones and Bob Stoops was 12-0 in games with Iowa State.
Lincoln Riley has not been as successful as the Big Three of the OU coaching fraternity. Riley’s record against the Cyclones — all during the coaching tenure of ISU head coach Matt Campbell — is just 3-2, but that does include a win over Iowa State in last season’s Big 12 Championship.
In the combined decades of the 1940s, ’50s, ’70s and ’80s, Oklahoma’s record against Iowa State was 39-0-1.
During the Big 12 era (1996 to present), Oklahoma owns a 16-2 record against Iowa State.