In 131 seasons of college football, Oklahoma has experienced 107 winning seasons and 10 seasons that have ended at .500, or with an equal number of wins and losses, which leaves a total of only 14 losing seasons all-time.
The University of Oklahoma began playing football in the 1890s, compiling an 8-2 record in five seasons between 1895 and 1899. And it only got better from there. Over 14 decades, beginning in the 1890s, Oklahoma has never ended a decade with a losing record in football.
In fact, in five different decades over the past 131 seasons, Sooner football teams have posted a 10-year winning percentage of .800 or greater. Two of those five have come in the first two decades of the 2000s, when Oklahoma averaged 10 wins a season under teams coached by Bob Stoops and Lincoln Riley, and never ended the season with a losing record.
The Sooners compiled a 110-24 record, an .821 winning percentage, in the opening decade of the 2000s and followed that up with a similar 109-25 mark and an .813 win percentage over the next 10 seasons.
Bud Wilkinson's great Oklahoma teams of the 1950s set the standard for all those to follow
As successful as the last two decades have been for the Oklahoma football program, however, neither matches the record of excellence achieved by Bud Wilkinson's nearly unbeatable Oklahoma teams in the 1950s. The Sooners, with such noteworthy All-Americans as Billy Vessels, Kurt Burris, Tommy McDonald, Jerry Tubbs, and Clendon Thomas leading the way, lost just 10 times in 105 games from 1950 to 1959 for a winning percentage of .895.
The fruits of those 10 remarkable seasons included three national championships (1950, 1955, and 1956), three consecutive undefeated seasons (1954, 1955, and 1956), and an NCAA record 47-game winning streak, a mark that still stands today. Also, in 1956, halfback Vessels became the first Oklahoma player awarded the Heisman Trophy.
The 1950s were also the decade in which Oklahoma president George L. Cross made his historic declaration before the state legislature appropriations committee: "We want to build a university our football team can be proud of."
Barry Switzer's 1970s Oklahoma teams came very close to accomplishing what Wilkinson's teams had done a couple of decades before. The Sooners won 102 games under Switzer in the 10 seasons from 1970 to 1979. They lost 13 and played to a tie three times for a decade-long winning percentage of .877. During that decade, Switzer matched Wilkinson's three national titles with three of his own (1973, 1974, and 1985), along with a Heisman winner in running back Billy Sims in 1978.
The Sooners played their first varsity football game on Dec. 14, 1895, 12 years before Oklahoma officially became a state. The 1895 Oklahoma team was actually organized by John A. Harts, who is listed as the first OU head coach. In actuality, however, Harts was a student at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas.
The opponent in Oklahoma's first game was a town team from nearby Oklahoma City, which obviously was more talented and experienced than the nascent group that represented the college team from Norman. The final score was 34-0 in favor of the team out of Oklahoma City. The contest was so one-sided that the young Sooners failed to record a single first down
That was the only game that season, leaving the Sooners with a losing record in their very first season of organized football. OU would not suffer another losing record for 27 more seasons.
Add us as a preferred source on Google