Stormin in Norman
Fansided

Oklahoma football: What fans should know about OU vs. Kansas

By Chip Rouse

Nov 7, 2020; Norman, Oklahoma, USA; Oklahoma Sooners defensive end Ronnie Perkins (7) pressures Kansas Jayhawks quarterback Jalon Daniels (17) during the first half at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 7, 2020; Norman, Oklahoma, USA; Oklahoma Sooners defensive end Ronnie Perkins (7) pressures Kansas Jayhawks quarterback Jalon Daniels (17) during the first half at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports /
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For the first time in seemingly an eternity, the roles will be reversed when the Oklahoma football Sooners host longtime Big 12 cellar-dweller Kansas. That’s the way it used to be, but this season things are much different.

A month and a half into the 2022 college football season, Kansas comes into its game with the Sooners riding the momentum of a 5-1 record and a No. 19 national ranking. Meanwhile, Oklahoma is at 3-3 overall, having lost all three of its conference games by an average margin of 39 points, and finds itself at the bottom of the Big 12 standings.

If that’s not one of the most shocking turnarounds in college football this season, I don’t know what is.

For the fourth time in six games, the Sooners will play an 11 a.m. game this Saturday, but it’s the first time the early start is at home. The three previous late morning games have been on the road, including the shocking 49-0 shellacking handed Oklahoma last weekend in the annual Red River Showdown.

In season’s past — quite a few of them, in fact — when the Kansas Jayhawks appeared on the schedule, it was almost always viewed as a slam dunk game for Oklahoma, to borrow the terminology of another sport in which the same result exists in reverse. The Sooners have won 71 percent of the 112 football games played between the two schools. OU is 79-27-6 all-time against the Jayhawks and has 17 consecutive wins over Kansas.

Since the 1965 season, Oklahoma is 44-6 against the Jayhawks.

Despite a three-game losing streak and back-to-back blowout losses in its past two outings, Oklahoma has been established as a 7.5-point favorite in Saturday’s game.

Here are a few more things Sooner fans should know about this week’s OU-Kansas matchup:

  • The 11 a.m. game will be televised nationally by ESPN2 with the announce crew of Dave Fleming on play-by-play, Rod Gilmore as the analyst and Tiffany Blackmon reporting from the sidelines.
  • The last time Kansas played Oklahoma as a ranked team was in 2009 with former Sooner assistant Mark Mangino as head coach. The Sooners won that game 35-13 in Lawrence.
  • Oklahoma has scored at least 34 points in each of its last 13 games against Kansas. Since the start of the 2012 season, OU is 83-5 when scoring at least 35 points.
  • Kansas is attempting to make it a Sunflower State sweep of the Sooners in Norman this season. Oklahoma has only lost at home 12 times since the 1999 season. One of those dozen home losses was several weeks ago to Kansas State, 34-27, which started OU’s current three-game losing skid.
  • The last time Oklahoma lost four games in a row was in 1998. The Sooners suffered a five-game losing streak that season in John Blake’s final season as head coach. Bob Stoops took over the following year.
  • The last time a Kansas football team won a game at Oklahoma was in 1996 (52-24) in John Blake’s first season as Oklahoma’s head coach. Neither team was ranked that season.
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