Stormin in Norman
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Oklahoma football: Six Power 5 programs the Sooners have never played

By Chip Rouse

NORMAN, OK - SEPTEMBER 10: The lights are turned off after a touchdown by the Oklahoma Sooners against the Kent State Golden Flashes as fans hold up their phones in the third quarter at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on September 10, 2022 in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma won 33-3. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)
NORMAN, OK - SEPTEMBER 10: The lights are turned off after a touchdown by the Oklahoma Sooners against the Kent State Golden Flashes as fans hold up their phones in the third quarter at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on September 10, 2022 in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma won 33-3. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images) /
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The countdown continues…44 days remain until the official kickoff of the 2023 Oklahoma football season.

You might think that after 128 seasons of the annual fall ritual, a program with the historical significance and success of Oklahoma would have played all of the teams from the major conferences at least once. You might think that, but it would be a false assumption.

There are some pretty big names over the college football landscape that the Sooners have not played. Six of those teams reside today in Power Five conferences.

There is only one major conference in which the Sooners have played every team currently in the conference. Oklahoma is 68-32-3 all-time in games against teams from the Pac-12. Forty of those victories are against former Big 12 and Big Eight foe Colorado. Otherwise, the Sooners would be 28-15-1 against the Pac-12 with just one game apiece against both Arizona State and Utah.

Only one of the six teams from Power Five conferences that Oklahoma has never played is currently on a future Sooner schedule.

Big Ten teams MIA all-time from the OU football schedule

The Sooners have never played three teams in the Big Ten on the gridiron. They have yet to play two from the Southeastern Conference (SEC), of which Oklahoma will become a member beginning in the 2024 season, and one out of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).

Excluding Nebraska, which was a longtime member of the Big 12 and its previous iterations as well as one of the Sooners’ biggest football rivals, OU is 16-7 against teams from the Big Ten, the oldest of the five major conferences. That is the fewest number of games Oklahoma has played against the other four Power Five leagues.

The three Big Ten teams the Sooners have never faced in football are Michigan State, Purdue and Rutgers. In addition to those three schools, OU has only played Indiana, Illinois and Michigan one time each.

SEC teams the Sooners have never played

Oklahoma moves to the SEC in 2024, where the Sooners own a 21-12 all-time record against teams from that conference not named Missouri and Texas A&M, against whom OU also holds a winning record. As a member of the SEC, Oklahoma will get the opportunity to play two schools it has never faced.

The Sooners will check off one of those teams, South Carolina, on the 2024 schedule. The Gamecocks come to Norman in the fall of 2024. The other is Mississippi State, but OU will have to wait until at least 2025 before that will happen

OU is one shy of having played every ACC team

In football, the ACC is currently made up of 14 schools competing in two separate divisions. Oklahoma has played 13 of the schools in football, albeit seven of the teams two times or fewer. The one team in that conference the Sooners have never played, however, is the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.

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