At this point in every college football season, two things begin to heat up in real time and, as a consequence, get a ton of attention. Those two things are: best bets to make the College Football Playoff and the race for the coveted Heisman Trophy. Oklahoma has been a major player in both of these prized categories over the years.
With seven national championships and an equal number of Heisman Trophy winners to its credit, Oklahoma's historical standing and accomplishments are among the best to ever play the game.
Interestingly, not one of the years in which an Oklahoma player won the Heisman coincided with one of the Sooners' seven championship seasons. On top of that, there have been a number of OU non-national championship seasons when more than one Sooner player was named a Heisman finalist.
This leads us to our Boomer Brain Buster question: What was Oklahoma's finest Heisman year?
Over a 25-year stretch from 1950 to 1975, Oklahoma won the first five of its seven national championships. The Sooners have only two national titles in football since then, but they do have five Heisman winners since and seven in total.
Oklahoma ranks second only to USC's eight in the number of Heisman winners since college football's most prestigious individual award was first presented in 1935. Ohio State and Notre Dame have also produced seven Heisman Trophy winners.
The Sooners stand all alone, though, when you factor in the number of winners, plus runners-up in the 91-year history of the Heisman. In addition to the seven Oklahoma Heisman winners in Billy Vessels (1952), Steve Owens (1969), Billy Sims (1978), Jason White (2003), Sam Bradford (2008), Baker Mayfield (2017) and Kyler Murray (2018), five former Sooners have finished second in the Heisman voting with Kurt Burris (1954), Greg Pruitt (1972), Billy Sims (1979), Josh Heupel (2000) and Adrian Peterson (2004).
Answer to the trivia question: In 2004, the year after Jason White became the fourth Oklahoma recipient of the Heisman Trophy, three different Sooners finished in the top four of the Heisman voting behind winner Matt Leinart of USC. RB Adrian Peterson was second, QB Jason White third and WR Mark Clayton was fourth.