Oklahoma football: The Sooners’ five greatest wins in Lincoln

As Oklahoma football embarks on Saturday’s visit to Lincoln, Neb. – the first for the Sooners since 2009 – we look back at the five greatest wins for the Sooners inside the home of the rival Nebraska Cornhuskers.

For all of Oklahoma’s football success over the past two-plus decades, the Sooners have defeated Nebraska just once in Lincoln since Barry Switzer resigned after the 1988 season.

While the Huskers’ 2011 defection from the Big 12 to the Big Ten has eliminated the ability for the two programs to meet with any regularity on the field, the Sooners’ 1990s slide into mediocrity, the Big 12 scheduling format that sent the two programs to opposite divisions – meaning they would visit each other’s home field just once every four years – and two of those road dates falling in years where Nebraska had two of its best teams of the 2000s (2001, 2009) are also big reasons why Oklahoma has just one win in Lincoln in the past 34 years.

Oklahoma has won just once at Nebraska in eight tries during that span, and it wasn’t one of its bevy of outstanding 21st-century quarterbacks that is credited with the victory. Nope, not a national champion like Josh Heupel or a Heisman Trophy winner like Jason White, Sam Bradford, Baker Mayfield, or Kyler Murray.

It was Rhett Bomar in his lone season (2005) at Oklahoma before NCAA rules violations forced the dismissal of the former 5-star recruit shortly before the 2006 season.

Behind 146 yards and two touchdowns from sophomore sensation Adrian Peterson, Bomar’s 157 yards passing with zero touchdowns – but zero turnovers – was enough to stake the Sooners to a 24-3 lead before winning, 31-24, against quarterbacking counterpart and current Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor, who threw for 249 yards and two scores, plus two interceptions to the unlikely duo of Dusty Dvoracek and Chijioke Onyenegecha.

While that largely forgettable matchup between two unranked teams that both finished 8-4 is considered by no one to be a benchmark in the storied rivalry between the Big Reds, here are five times – in no particular order – when a Sooners’ win in Lincoln did move the needle.

1987 – Game of the Century II
No. 2 Oklahoma 17, No. 1 Nebraska 7
In what was billed “Game of the Century II,” both teams were unbeaten and controlled the top two spots in the Associated Press rankings.

Oklahoma was ranked No. 1 for the first ten weeks of the season but was dropped to No. 2 in favor of No. 1 Nebraska after a season-ending knee injury to quarterback Jamelle Holieway and an unspectacular 17-13 home win over struggling Missouri made the Sooners appear vulnerable.
The loss of Holieway and Oklahoma starting fullback Lydell Carr, also out due to injury, had the host Huskers feeling confident.

Nebraska quarterback Steve Taylor, already a two-time loser in the rivalry, was quoted before the game as saying, “The flat-out truth is, Oklahoma can’t play with us. They’re not good enough. It might not even be close. And I mean that.”

“This is our house,” Nebraska defensive end Broderick Thomas said. “And only we have the key.”
“I don’t feel like we have to play our best game of the year to beat Oklahoma,” Nebraska tight end Tom Banderas said.

Nebraska appeared ready to back up its brash talk when an early touchdown gave the Huskers a 7-0 halftime lead, but Oklahoma Coach Barry Switzer saw the difference his defense was making and told the team at halftime, “Men, we got them just where we want them. And they know it, too.”

Switzer’s words proved prophetic as Nebraska’s No. 1-ranked scoring offense was shut out for the final three quarters and limited to just 235 total yards.

The Sooners’ offense broke through in the third quarter with a pair of touchdowns. Tailback Anthony Stafford tied the game with an 11-yard burst just over two minutes into the second half, but it was the go-ahead score that will be remembered forever.

Freshman quarterback Charles Thompson – whose excellent week of practice caused Switzer to tell him, “Play like that Saturday, and you’ll stun the nation” – deftly ran the triple-option all day and, with less than two minutes left in the third quarter, pitched to tailback Patrick Collins for a stunning 65-yard touchdown run down the sideline that broke the 7-7 stalemate for good.

An R.D. Lashar field goal midway through the fourth quarter pushed the lead to double digits.

The Sooners piled up 419 rushing yards and had three different players – Collins (131), Thompson (126), and reserve fullback Rotnei Anderson (119) – each top the century mark.

College Football Hall of Famer Rickey Dixon collected two of the Sooners’ three interceptions on defense.

The win – the third in a row for the Sooners in Lincoln – clinched the Big 8 title and earned the Sooners an Orange Bowl matchup with Miami (Fla.) for the national championship.

“We didn’t need the key to get in that house,” Holieway yelled in the postgame locker room. “We kicked the front door down!”

1976 – The Birth of “Sooner Magic.”
No. 8 Oklahoma 20, No. 10 Nebraska 17
Back-to-back October losses to Oklahoma State and Colorado had Oklahoma already booked for a Christmas Day matchup with Wyoming in the Fiesta Bowl, but a win would give the Sooners a share of the Big 8 title, while a Nebraska triumph would deliver the Huskers the Big 8 title and a trip to the Orange Bowl for the first time in four years.

Oklahoma’s 7-3 halftime lead evaporated quickly as Nebraska scored a pair of touchdowns less than nine minutes into the third quarter.

With a wind-chill temperature reading of minus-7 degrees, the Sooners were tasked with mounting a comeback with a sophomore quarterback in Thomas Lott, that had not completed a pass in five games.

So the Sooners got creative.

An option pitch from Lott to tailback Elvis Peacock went for a 51-yard touchdown that cut the Sooners’ deficit to four – a two-point conversion attempt failed – at 17-13 with 12:28 left in the game.

With 3:35 left and Nebraska at the Oklahoma 15-yard line, the Huskers elected to try for a game-clinching first down on 4th and two but were turned away by the Sooners’ defense.

The ensuing Oklahoma drive began with a Lott pitch to sophomore tailback Woodie Shepard, who fired the first Oklahoma pass of the day 48 yards downfield to receiver Steve Rhodes.

On 3rd and 20 from the Huskers’ 34, junior Dean Blevins relieved Lott in an obvious passing situation. What ensued was one of the most famous plays in the history of Oklahoma football. Blevins threw to Rhodes at the 25, who quickly pitched to a streaking Peacock down the left sideline.

“It was just like clockwork. Beautiful,” Blevins told The Athletic in 2021. “The most beautiful thing you could ever see because the play just developed so perfectly.”

The hook-and-lateral gave Oklahoma a first down at the Huskers’ 2 with 44 seconds to go and no times out. Lott returned under center and pitched wide to Peacock for the game-winning touchdown.

“The term Sooner Magic really came into use in 1976,” Switzer wrote in his 1990 autobiography “Bootlegger’s Boy.” “We were a young team, and Nebraska was clearly better than we were.”

The result clinched the Orange Bowl for Colorado, while Nebraska was relegated to the Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston.

“Colorado may be happy, but I know Oklahoma is happy too,” Switzer said after the game.

1986 – “The Catch.”
No. 3 Oklahoma 20, No. 5 Nebraska 17
Both teams were 9-1 and ranked in the top five. Nebraska’s October loss to Colorado meant an Oklahoma win or tie would give the Sooners the Big 8 crown and the automatic berth in the Orange Bowl.

For the first three quarters, it appeared Oklahoma would achieve neither. In the fourth, anything became possible.

Trailing 17-7 after three quarters, the Sooners embarked on another comeback indicative of the “Sooner Magic” moniker that was berthed in Lincoln after the 1976 game.

“Coach Switzer would always sit there and say, ‘You have got to believe that you are going to win,'” former Oklahoma quarterback Jamelle Holieway told Stormin’ in Norman in August. “‘I don’t care if there are no ticks on the clock and it is the last Hail Mary, we have to think that we are going to win that.'”

After a field goal pulled Oklahoma within a touchdown at 17-10, the Sooners got the ball back with 4:10 to go and needed 94 yards for a touchdown. Holieway marched his team down the field in less than three minutes, capped by a 17-yard touchdown pass to Keith Jackson with 1:22 to go.

Knowing that a tie would give his team the conference title, Oklahoma Coach Barry Switzer elected to kick the tying extra point.

The ensuing Nebraska drive took just 32 seconds off the clock, so the Sooners’ offense took possession at their own 34-yard line with 50 seconds to go.

With just 18 seconds left and the Sooners still on their own side of the field, Holieway fired deep down the right sideline to tight end Keith Jackson, who tipped the ball to himself and corralled it with one hand as he lumbered to the Nebraska 14.

Oklahoma kicker Tim Lashar’s 31-yard field goal with nine seconds to go sent the stunned Nebraska crowd home and the Sooners to the Orange Bowl for the third year in a row.

1984 – “The Stand.”
No. 6 Oklahoma 17, No. 1 Nebraska 7
After winning eight of his first nine meetings against Nebraska’s Tom Osborne, Oklahoma Coach Barry Switzer entered the 1984 contest with a three-game losing streak to the Huskers.

Nebraska was ranked No. 1 in the country and had won 27 conference games in a row. The Sooners, meanwhile, were a bit of a hard-luck story after a much-disputed 15-15 tie against Texas and a road loss to Kansas in which backup quarterback Troy Aikman was forced to play after an injury to starter Danny Bradley.

The game was tied, 7-7, after three quarters. A 32-yard field goal gave the Sooners a 10-7 lead just 11 seconds into the final frame, but with less than seven minutes to go, Nebraska threatened to grab the advantage after driving to the Oklahoma eight-yard line.

With the ball on the 1, Nebraska was stuffed for no gain, and Osborne elected to go for the lead on fourth down instead of kicking a game-tying field goal. A pitch to Nebraska tailback Jeff Smith was read perfectly by Oklahoma defensive back Brian Hall, who corralled the Husker ball carrier for no gain.

“The cement truck in the middle (noseguard Tony Casillas) made that play,” Hall said after the game. “He knocked everything back.”

A Nebraska fumble on a punt return led to a 29-yard clinching touchdown run by Bradley with 56 seconds left in the game.

Oklahoma clinched the Big 8 title and earned a bid to the Orange Bowl for the first time in four years with a victory the following week over No. 3 Oklahoma State.

1980 – “Lucy and Charlie Brown.”
No. 9 Oklahoma 21, No. 4 Nebraska 17
Both teams suffered early non-conference losses but were unbeaten in Big 8 play, and both ranked in the top 10 entering the game for the 10th time in 11 years.

Nebraska jumped ahead, 10-0, but a pair of short second-quarter touchdown runs less than three minutes apart by Oklahoma quarterback J.C. Watts, and tailback Chet Winters gave the Sooners a 14-10 halftime lead.

Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne appeared to be on the verge of collecting just his second win in nine tries against Oklahoma Coach Barry Switzer when Huskers’ quarterback Jeff Quinn scored on a one-yard quarterback keeper that gave his team a 17-14 lead with just 3:16 left in the game.

The Sooners took over at their own 20-yard line and were headed into a stiff Nebraska wind, but on the third play, a late Watts option pitch to freshman tailback Buster Rhymes – playing in place of an injured David Overstreet (decd. 1984) – went for 43 yards to the Nebraska 14.

“Oh, no,” a young Nebraska fan sprinting down the sideline was quoted in the Norman Transcript as saying. “They’re going to do it to us again.”

They did.

On 3rd and 10, Watts fired a pass to junior receiver Bobby Grayson for a 13-yard gain and a first down at the 1. Two plays later, Watts pitched again to Rhymes, who dove into the end zone for the go-ahead score with 56 seconds to play.

“I told myself, ‘There isn’t any need in trying to trick somebody. Let’s just dive over.’ I just dove. I was going to get in there regardless,” Rhymes said after the game.

With the win, Oklahoma was 9-1 in its last ten games against Nebraska, including eight wins in nine tries for Switzer against Osborne head to head.

Switzer said at the time, “This might be the best one yet.”

A rout of Oklahoma State a week later delivered the Sooners to the Orange Bowl for the fourth year in a row.

The dramatic victory inspired an unforgettable line from Lincoln Star sports writer Virgil Parker after the game.

“Every time Nebraska plays Oklahoma in football,” Parker wrote. “It’s like an instant replay of Lucy and Charlie Brown.”