In the 1970s and '80s, the Oklahoma-Nebraska football rivalry was as big, if not bigger, than the annual Red River Rivalry battle royale between the Sooners and the Longhorns.
The Oklahoma-Texas rivalry game, played every year on the second weekend of October as part of the State Fair of Texas, continues on, of course, as popular as ever. As a direct consequence of the conference realignment mania that hit college football at the close of the opening decade of the 2000s, what remained of the Oklahoma-Nebraska rivalry was relegated to the past tense.
The renowned OU-Nebraska football rivalry came to a virtual end after 98 years
The longtime rivalry series between these two Midwestern college football powerhouse programs, still considered among the greatest of all-time, reached its virtual end in 2010, when the Sooners and the Cornhuskers met, appropriately, in the Big 12 Championship Game in what would be the final time as members of that conference. Oklahoma won that game, 23-20.
OU and Nebraska have played a couple of times since the 2010 season -- in a scheduled non-conference home-and-home series in 2021 and 2022 -- and are currently scheduled to meet again in back-to-back seasons in 2029 and 2030. In truth, however, any more those games are not much more than a eulogy to what once was.
The Sooners and Huskers may develop new geographical or cultural ties that could evolve into a pseudo rivalry or two as part of their new conferences, but those will never replace the history and great moments that existed for so long in the Battle of the Big Reds.
The Sooners and Cornhuskers have faced each other 88 times on the gridiron over the past 114 years, dating back to their inaugural meeting in 1912. For the vast majority of those years, the two teams played each other every season as conference foes, including a number of times when both teams were ranked among the top five in the country.
The 88 games against Nebraska is actually more than the 86 games Oklahoma has played against every team in the SEC not named Texas or Missouri, both former members of the Big 12.
Oklahoma holds the advantage with a 47-38-3 record in its series with Nebraska, including eight wins in the last 10 games. Nebraska dominated early in the century-old series, winning 16 of the first 22 games, including two games that ended in ties. The tables turned, however, between 1943 and 1958, as Oklahoma won 16 consecutive games in the series during that span.
Nebraska is now a member of the Big Ten and Oklahoma is part of the SEC, but some may have forgotten or overlooked the fact that for 93 years both teams were members of what is now the Big 12.
The Cornhuskers were founding members of what started out in 1907 as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association. The Sooners joined that league in 1919. Four evolutions and nearly nine decades later, that original five-school conference morphed into what we know today as the Big 12.
Oklahoma head coaches are not only measured by the number of games and championships they win, but how their Sooner teams do against their big rivals, which for many seasons were Nebraska, Oklahoma State and always Texas. The legendary Bud Wilkinson was a dominant 14-3 (.824) against Nebraska. Barry Switzer was 12-5 (.706), and Bob Stoops' Oklahoma teams played Nebraska a total of just seven games, going 6-1, because of an unbalanced conference schedule and the Huskers leaving the league after the 2010 season.
The Oklahoma-Nebraska rivalry produced several of the more memorable games in the history of college football, including the highly publicized showdown between "irrresistible Oklahoma," as touted in the cover headline of the Sept. 22, 1971, issue of Sports Illustrated, and "immovable Nebraska." It was a marquee matchup between the No. 1 Huskers and the No. 2 Sooners that famously came to be known as the Game of the Century.
Oklahoma and Nebraska have faced each other nine times when both teams were ranked in the top-five nationally and four different times when it was No. 1 vs. No. 2.
5 classic games in the Oklahoma-Nebraska rivalry
1. Nov. 25, 1971: No. 1 Nebraska at No. 2 Oklahoma
The "Game of the Century," as this classic showdown was billed, not only was the most celebrated game in the OU-Nebraska rivalry but one of the all-time great games in the history of college football.
Held on Thanksgiving Day and nationally televised, the Sooners trailed by 11 points twice in the game: 14-3 in the first quarter and 28-17 in the third. Oklahoma fought back both times. Midway through the final quarter, the Sooners took their first lead in the game, 31-28, on a 17-yard pass from Jack Mildren to Jon Harrison. The Cornhuskers responded with a 74-yard touchdown drive of their own, capped off on a short, two-yard run by Jeff Kinney with just 1:38 remaining in the game. The stout Nebraska Blackshirt defense held the Sooners on their final possession, and the Huskers walked away with a 35-31 victory for their 21st consecutive win.
2. Nov. 11, 1978: No. 1 Oklahoma at No. 4 Nebraska
Nebraska head coach Tom Osborne had lost five consecutive times to Barry Switzer's Oklahoma Sooners. Heisman Trophy winner Billy Sims gave the Sooners an early 7-0 lead. Nebraska recovered six of nine Oklahoma fumbles in the game, converting two of the miscues, one of which was by Sims, into touchdowns. With the score tied 14-14, Nebraska's Billy Todd kicked a 34-yard field goal to give the Cornhuskers a 17-14 advantage, which they did not relinquish in knocking off the top-ranked Sooners. The fourth-quarter field goal was the first time Nebraska had scored in the final period against Oklahoma since 1971.
3. Nov. 21, 1987: No. 2 Oklahoma at No. 1 Nebraska
Another matchup of top-ranked Nebraska and No. 2 Oklahoma took place in 1987. Billed as "Game of the Century II," this game featured some of the same drama and excitement as in the first one vs. two showdown but without as many points. Nebraska jumped out to a quick 7-0 lead, but that would be the extent of the Huskers' scoring for the game. The Sooner defense held the high-powered Nebraska offense to just 235 yards of offense, 289 yards under its nation-best average. Oklahoma's vaunted wishbone offense, with Charles Thompson leading the way at quarterback, totaled 419 rushing yards in the game with three Sooners going over the century mark. Were it not for three OU lost fumbles, the victory margin of this 17-7 Oklahoma win probably would have been worse.
4. Oct. 28, 2000: No. 1 Nebraska at No. 3 Oklahoma
Oklahoma and Nebraska did not meet in 1999, Bob Stoops' first season at Oklahoma, but the Huskers were the sixth game on the 2000 schedule. The Sooners came into the game with a 5-0 record, including a 63-14 rout of No. 10 Texas and a 41-31 shootout win over No. 2 Kansas State. No. 1 Nebraska loomed as Oklahoma's third consecutive top-25 opponent. Nebraska came out on fire, scoring 14 quick points within the first seven minutes of the game. But that's when quarterback Josh Heupel and the Sooner offense came to life. Oklahoma scored 31 unanswered points between the second and third quarters while holding the Husker offense scoreless over the final three quarters for a 31-14 victory. The Sooners produced 418 yards of total offense, 300 of which was through the air. Oklahoma moved to the top spot in the national rankings after the win and went on to finish the season with a perfect 13-0 record, including a 13-2 win over Florida State in the BCS national championship game.
Read more: Oklahoma's biggest rivalry upsets of the 21st century in rare underdog situations
5. Nov. 17, 1984: No. 4 Oklahoma at No. 1 Nebraska
No. 1 Nebraska hosted 4th-ranked Oklahoma in 1984, riding a 27-game conference winning streak. The Cornhuskers had not lost to a Big Eight opponent since a loss to the Sooners in 1980. The Sooners had lost four consecutive games to Nebraska and had lost an uncharacteristic four games in each of the previous three seasons.
The Cornhuskers came into the game wielding the nation's best scoring defense, allowing opponents just 8.8 points per game. The two teams battled to a 7-7 tie after the first 30 minutes, which is the way the score remained heading to the fourth quarter. OU's Tim Lashar broke the tie with a 32-yard field goal on the second play of the fourth quarter to give OU a 10-7 lead. The Sooners added a fourth-quarter insurance touchdown to finish off a 17-7 road upset of the top-ranked Cornhuskers. Twice in the game the Oklahoma defense stopped Nebraska inside the OU five-yard line. It was the first time in a decade that Oklahoma had held Nebraska to just one touchdown in a game and the Sooners first win over a No. 1-ranke team in 21 years.
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