Even the best OU football teams have fallen to Kansas in Sooner-dominated series

In 113 Oklahoma football games all-time against the Kansas Jayhawks, the Sooners have come out on top in 80 of them, or 73 percent of the time, in a series that dates back to 1903.

This is the third longest continuous series in OU football history. Only the one with Texas (119 games) and Oklahoma State (117) are longer.

As dominant as Oklahoma has been in football games with Kansas, it hasn’t always been that way. The Jayhawks won the first eight games in the series, and the Sooners failed to score in six of them.

The Sooners have won the last 18 meetings between the two longtime Big 12 foes. That is Oklahoma’s longest win streak against any opponent. The last time Kansas defeated Oklahoma was in 1997, with the Jayhawks winning 20-17 at Kansas and extending their win streak to three straight over the Sooners.

Since 1965, Oklahoma is 45-6 against Kansas, but longtime Sooner fans — and I mean longtime, like in 60-plus years of age — will likely never forget two of those six Jayhawk wins that came against two highly ranked OU teams.

Legendary Sooner head coach Barry Switzer was 14-2 against Kansas in his 16 seasons at the helm in Norman. It won’t be the wins, but rather those two losses his teams suffered to the Jayhawks that he will remember the most.

November 8, 1975

Kansas 23, No. 2 Oklahoma 3

Oklahoma, the reigning national champions, according to the Associated Press poll in 1974, was the preseason No. 1 team to start the 1975 season. When they faced Kansas in Norman in the ninth game in 1975, the Sooners were 8-0 and ranked No. 2 in the country.

Barry Switzer was in his third full season as the Oklahoma head coach and had compiled a record of 28-0-1 since being named head coach at the beginning of the 1973 season. The only blemish on the Sooners’ record during that time was a 7-7 tie with No. 1 USC two games into the 1973 season.

The Jayhawks were running a Wishbone offense, like OU’s, with a converted defensive back, Nolan Cromwell (who later went on to an NFL career), operating at point in Kansas’ triple-option offense.

Kansas surprised the Sooners, holding down the high-scoring OU offense and taking a 7-3 lead into halftime. There was upset alert written all over this one after the opening 30 minutes.

The roof caved in on the second-ranked Sooners in the third quarter, as the Jayhawks forced eight — that’s right, eight — Oklahoma turnovers (four on interceptions plus four lost fumbles).

Oklahoma outgained the Jayhawks 338 to 235 but could not overcome the eight turnovers and another 55 yards in penalties. Kansas scored nine points in the third quarter and added a touchdown in the fourth to bury the Sooners in a 23-3 upset.

Ironically, this was the only game Oklahoma would lose in 1975 and was their first loss dating all the way back to mid-October 1972. The Sooners finished the 1975 season with a 14-6 win over Michigan in the Orange Bowl and a repeat as national champions.

October 27, 1984

Kansas 28, No. 2 Oklahoma 11

It had been 20 years since Oklahoma last lost a game at Kansas. During that time, the Sooners had made nine trips to Lawrence, Kan., and come away with nine wins. There were some close games at Kansas over that time – a four-point OU win in 1970, a two-point victory in 1980 and a narrow, one-point decision in 1978 — but the Sooners had always come out on top.

Oklahoma was 5-0-1 when it was time to play Kansas in 1984, and the Sooners were again highly ranked, at No. 2 in the Associated Press poll. The tie was against top-ranked Texas. Kansas was a team headed in the opposite direction from that of the Sooners. The Jayhawks were 2-5 at the time this game was played.

The heavily favored Sooners struck first with a first-quarter field goal. Little did Oklahoma know at the time that that would be the only Sooner score until the final three seconds of the ball game. Following the OU field goal, the Jayhawks would score the next 28 points before Oklahoma was able to push across a meaningless touchdown as time ran down on the clock.

The Sooners would lose one more time that season, 28-17 to Washington in the Orange Bowl, and finish the 1984 season with a 9-2 overall record, 6-1 in the Big Eight and as conference champions.

People who closely follow Kansas Jayhawks sports have rated the 1984 Oklahoma game as one of the top three upset wins in Kansas football history.