Oklahoma football defenses snubbed in ESPN Top-50 all-time ranking

Defense is not a term normally associated with Oklahoma football, and most certainly not in the last decade.

The Sooners’ most prominent trait throughout its long history is high-powered offensive capability. From the days of Bud Wilkinson’s Split-T offenses to the Wishbone offenses under Barry Switzer, which OU didn’t invent but certainly is the school most associated with it, to the aerial barrage of the Air Raid spread-offense attack that served Bob Stoops’ teams well, the Sooners have always been offensive-minded.

That is not to suggest, however, that Oklahoma never paid much attention to or built its team around a strong defensive presence.

ESPN staff writer Bill Connelly recently ranked the teams he views as having the 50 best defenses in the history of top-division college football. Oklahoma appears just one time on that list: Barry Switzer’s 1986 Sooner team is ranked 10th.

That OU team, led by defensive stars Brian Bosworth and Ricky Dixon, finished the season with an 11-1 record and allowed just 6.8 points a game. The 1986 Sooners held seven opponents to six points total (five were shutouts) and three top-10 teams (UCLA, Nebraska and Arkansas) to 28 combined points.

By contrast, an earlier ESPN ranking of the 150 greatest college teams of all-time included eight Oklahoma teams in the top 50, all based on offensive performance.

Connelly uses scoring defense (average points allowed per game) as the primary criteria for his ranking of the 50 best college football defensive teams of all-time, and he also factored the era in which the teams played and the quality of the opponents on the schedule. For example, teams in the 1950s and earlier didn’t score as many points as today’s prolific offenses.

I wouldn’t expect Oklahoma to be featured prominently in a top-50 defensive ranking, but I am frankly disappointed and surprised that at least three or four other Sooner defenses did not make the cut.

For example, the 2001 Sooner team allowed 13.8 points per game and was ranked fourth in the country in scoring defense. The 2003 Sooner defense ranked third in the nation in scoring defense, giving up an average of 15.3 points per game.

The OU defenses of the early 2000s under defensive-minded head coach Bob Stoops might not have warranted a top-10 ranking among Connelly’s best-of-the-best ranking, but they certainly were good enough to be included among the 50 top defenses given his measurement criteria.

Connelly’s top-50 ranking has 2016 LSU 39th with a scoring defense average of 15.8 points per game and an 8-4 overall record. The 2007 USC defense is 36th at 16.0 points per game and 2012 Florida is ranked 26th, according to Connelly’s evaluation criteria, allowing 14.5 points per game.

So, you tell me. Doesn’t Oklahoma deserve more than one listing among the top-50 college football defenses of all time?

Wilkinson’s Sooner teams may not have played against the same level of competition that today’s best college teams go up against every weekend, but they sure as heck played strong defense, and with two-way players, to boot. The 1956 national champion Oklahoma team pitched six shutouts and allowed just 5.1 points a game, and the 1958 Sooners held five opponents scoreless and averaged 5.5 points allowed on defense.

The defense rests…