Oklahoma football: 2022 OU-Iowa State sharp turnaround from 2020 season
By Chip Rouse
Just two short seasons ago, the 2020 edition of Oklahoma football and Iowa State played for the Big 12 championship as the top two teams in the conference.
The Sooners and Cyclones actually played twice in the 2020 season. Iowa State handed Oklahoma one of its two losses during the regular season, defeating the then 18th-ranked Sooners 37-30 in a game at Iowa State. Oklahoma avenged that loss with a 27-21 victory, earning its 14th and most recent Big 12 championship.
What a difference a couple of years make. As the two teams get set to play each other on Saturday at Iowa State, the Sooners and Cyclones find themselves at the other end of the Big 12 standings with 1-3 and 0-4 records, respectively.
The all-time series between Oklahoma and Iowa State dates back to 1928. The two schools have faced each other 87 times on the gridiron, with the Sooners winning 78 times, the Cyclones seven times and there have been two ties. Two of the seven Iowa State wins against Oklahoma have come in the last five seasons. The Cyclones won 38-31 in 2017 in Norman and again two seasons later at Iowa State, 37-30.
Oklahoma is 17-2 against Iowa State in the Big 12 era and has won 49 of the last 53 games against the Cyclones. The Sooners .908 winning percentage all-time over Iowa State is the best by one Power Five program against another with a minimum of 50 games played.
Although Oklahoma has dominated Iowa State in the all-time series, the last seven meetings have been decided by 10, 7, 10, 1, 7, 6 and 7 points, with the Sooners winning five of the seven.
Barry Switzer and Bob Stoops never lost to Iowa State. Switzer was 15-0-1 against the Cyclones, Stoops was 10-0 against Iowa State. Bud Wilkinson’s Sooner teams of the 1950s and early ’60s won 14 in a row over Iowa State before losing two consecutive games in 1960 and ’61. Overall, Wilkinson was 15-2 against the Cyclones.