Oklahoma football returns home on Saturday to take on the Baylor Bears in a matchup of teams with surprisingly nearly identical records.
Both teams come into the game with identical 5-3 records overall, although Baylor is one game up on the Sooners in the conference race, sporting a 3-2 Big 12 record to OU’s two wins and three losses.
As of Tuesday morning, Oklahoma is a 3.0-point favorite in the game, largely because of where the game is being played. The Sooners are 14-1 all-time against Baylor in Norman (11-1 in the Big 12 era).
The Sooners are 28-4 all-time against Baylor and 23-4 since 1996, when the Bears became a member of the Big 12. Oklahoma won the first 20 games in the all-time series, which began in 1901, before Baylor won for the first time, in 2011, posting a 45-38 win in Waco behind Heisman-winning quarterback Robert Griffin III.
Since the 1999 season, Oklahoma owns one of the best home records in college football. The Sooners have lost just 12 times in 144 home games since the beginning of the 1999 season, a winning percentage of .833. To put that in perspective, OU has more Big 12 championships (14) than home losses (12) since Bob Stoops became head coach in 1999.
More recently, though, Oklahoma has won 11 of its last 12 home games and 29 of the last 32. Kansas State is responsible for both losses (in 2017 and this season).
Saturday’s game will be the first time since 2005 that the Sooners have not been ranked when facing Baylor
The game is scheduled for a 2 p.m. CT kickoff but will not be nationally televised, Instead the game will air on Big 12 Now on ESPN+ with an announce team of Courtney Lyle, Ryan Leaf and Tori Petry.
Here is how the two teams are ranked nationally in several major statistical categories:
OU Baylor
Scoring 40th 15th
Total offense 29th 27th
Total defense 113th 29th
Rushing offense 16th 24th
Rushing defense 114th 22nd
Passing offense 70th 53rd
Passing defense 90th 58th