Missouri owns the better 2024 record, but Sooners have dominated the Tigers in all-time series

On Saturday in Columbia, Missouri, the Oklahoma Sooners and Missouri Tigers will play for the 97th time in a gridiron series that goes all the way back to 1902 and was a continuing affair for many years as members of the Big 12 and back through the Big Six in the 1930s and '40s.

Missouri won four of the first five games between the two teams between 1902 and 1913, but after that the series has been heavily dominated by Oklahoma.

Legendary Sooner head coach Bud Wilkinson had the best record against the Tigers, going 16-1 in his 17 seasons at Oklahoma. Barry Switzer's teams did almost as well in the 1970s and 1980s, compiling a 14-2 mark. Bob Stoops was just 7-2 against Missouri because of the Big 12's divisional format for a number of years and unbalanced scheduling, but those seven wins included two in the Big 12 Championship game.

Missouri was the No. 1 team in the country when the Tigers faced Big 12 South Division winner OU in the 2007 Big 12 Championship. The No. 9-ranked Sooners jumped on Mizzou early in that game and went on to a 38-17 victory. Those same two teams met again in 2008 in the Big 12 title game. Oklahoma poured it on early and often behind QB Sam Bradford, who was awarded the Heisman Trophy that season and led the No. 4-ranked Sooners to the BCS Championship game against Florida. The final score of the 2008 Big 12 Championship was OU 62, Missouri 21.

The most recent meeting between OU and Mizzou was in 2011 in Norman. The year after that, Missouri left the Big 12 to join the SEC. Missouri jumped out to a 14-3 lead over top-ranked Oklahoma in the opening quarter before the Sooners reeled off 28 unanswered points, led by the offensive trio of QB Landry Jones, WR Ryan Broyles and RB Dominique Whaley. Oklahoma led 31-14 after three quarters and went on to win the game by a score of 38-28.

Those are just a few of the more recent gridiron battles between the two schools. Arguably one of the greatest Oklahoma-Missouri games, however, took place 49 years ago, on Nov. 15, 1975, in Columbia, Missouri.

No. 6 Oklahoma scored 20 first-half points and held No. 18 Missouri scoreless in the opening half. As the teams went to the locker room at the break, it appeared that the Sooners had the game pretty much in hand. Mizzou had other thoughts, though. The Tigers countered with a touchdown in the third quarter to cut into OU's lead at 20-7. Then, a strange thing happened in the fourth quarter. Missouri erupted for 20 unanswered points in a 10-minute span, and all of a sudden the Tigers found themselves out in front 27-20 with under five minutes to go.

Faced with a fourth-and-one from the Sooner 29-yard line and 4:20 remaining in the game, silver-shoed Washington took a pitch from quarterback Steve Davis and exploded around the right side of the Missouri defense that had stacked the line of scrimmage for what it thought would be an inside run to pick up the first down.

Instead, Washington sidestepped a couple of would-be tacklers, who basically whiffed at air, and was on his way to the races -- Sooner Magic in full display! Seventy-one yards later, he crossed into the Missouri end zone to make the score 28-26. Switzer elected to go for two points and the potential win. The Sooners ran the same play with Washington, but this time OU's No. 3 career rushing leader had to hurdle over a Mizzou goal-line defender to successfully execute the two-point play and regain the lead, although by just a single point.

Craig Larson Jr. of Athlon Sports recently caught up with former Sooner All-American Joe Washington and asked him about the dramatic closing sequence of that classic contest of nearly 50 years ago.

"I remember two things, really," Washington said. "First, on that pitch to me, I was going to go to the end zone no matter what. Also, I had to do a skip jump of sorts because I was on the wrong foot to make the cut."

The Oklahoma defense held up from there. The Tigers had a chance with 57 seconds to pull off the upset, but a 40-yard field-goal try fell low and short. They actually got one more try with just five seconds left, but a 54-yard field goal attempt missed badly.

Oklahoma went on that season to beat Nebraska for the Big Eight Championship and then defeat No. 5 Michigan in the Orange Bowl to claim a fifth national championship and back-to-back national titles (1974 and 1975).