Why Oklahoma’s dominance proves it will always be a college football blue blood

Ask anyone who follows college football which teams are considered blue bloods in the sport, and you are likely to get a lot of differing opinions. There is probably a core group of programs that would make virtually everyone's list. My guess is that Oklahoma would be one of those top-of-mind considerations.

Most of us, at one time or another, have likely heard Oklahoma referred to as one of the blue blood programs of college football. But what really qualifies as a blue blood program or one we would consider to be royalty in the sport? Is it total wins? Number of national championships? Number of All-Americans, Heisman winners or number of players who go on to play in the NFL?

Or what about the schools that began playing the game before anybody else and are still actively engaged in the sport today? It's apparent that there are several defining factors that could be applied to determine what constitutes a so-called college football blue blood.

What is a blue blood program and where does Oklahoma fall in this regal distinction?

Rutgers and Princeton played in the first college football game of record on Nov. 6, 1869. At that time, Princeton was known as the College of New Jersey. The game was actually played with a soccer ball, and the final score, 6-4, was more like a baseball score. That was a decade or longer before traditional football giants like Notre Dame, Michigan or Ohio State played their inaugural games. And it was 26 years before a team representing the University of Oklahoma played its first football game.

On3 college football writer Andy Staples recently tackled the question "What makes a college football blue blood?" In doing so, he came up with a methodology that took into consideration the 15 teams with the highest winning percentage over a minimum of 750 games. Another qualifying factor was one or more national titles in at least two of the three distinct eras in modern college football history. The latter criterion addressed the issue of sustained success over a long period of time.

Era I in Staples' breakdown was 1936 (the beginning of the Associated Press poll era) to 1964 (when the NCAA rule changed regarding two-way players). Era II encompassed the period 1965-95, and Era III took into account the BCS and College Football Playoff era of college football.

Based on Staples' defining criteria for what constitutes a blue blood program in college football, there were 12 teams that met the requirements, including Oklahoma. The Sooners are the sixth winningest team with 950 wins and rank fifth all-time with a .723 winning percentage, so they more than meet the win percentage criteria.

As for championship-level sustainability and the requirement to have achieved at least one national title in two of the three college football eras specified by Staples, Oklahoma easily checked that box, as well. The Sooners won national titles in all three eras. They won three national championships in the 1950s (1950, 1955 and 1956) under Bud Wilkinson, three more in the 1970s and 1980s (1974, 1975 and 1985) under Barry Switzer and captured their seventh in 2000 in Bob Stoops' second season as head coach.

The other 11 teams that met Staples' definition for what qualifies as a college football blue blood were (in alphabetical order): Alabama, Florida State, Georgia, LSU, Michigan, Miami, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Tennessee, Texas and USC. Regardless of the criteria, I think most college football fans would agree with this list, with maybe one or two exceptions.

But what about the teams that didn't make the cut, notably Auburn, Clemson, Florida and particularly Nebraska?

There is also the question of: Once you achieve blue blood status, can you lose it? For example, many college football followers would consider Nebraska a lock for blue blood status. After all, there was no program more dominant in the 1970s,1980s and 1990s.

No college team won more games (309) over that 30-year period than the Cornhuskers. The Huskers also won five national championships during that time frame, but they didn't win any before 1970 and none in the BCS or CFP eras. And ever since Nebraska left the Big 12 after the 2010 season and became a member of the Big Ten, the once-dominant Huskers have lost almost as many games as they've won, including losing records in seven of the last eight seasons.

Oklahoma is clearly one of the winningest programs in college football history, but the Sooners' last national championship was 25 years ago, and they've had two losing seasons out of the last three. Should that bring into question OU's blue blood status? I'm not sure that question will ever get answered to everyone's satisfaction.

A few years back, ESPN posed the question of what are the most important programs -- or college football royalty -- in the history of college football to a dozen of its staff writers. They rated every FBS school and awarded points (on a 1-10 scale) based on each school's overall impact on the history of college football.

Eight schools fell into a category the ESPN writers classified as "Blue Bloods." The top five programs in the exercise came up with perfect "10" scores. And for the most part, they were the schools you would come up with off the top of your head. Oklahoma was among those receiving a perfect score, along with Alabama, Notre Dame, Ohio State and USC.

Three others (Michigan, Texas, Nebraska) finished with a 9.5 or better, and also made the group ESPN classified as a college football blue blood.

I suppose the point of all of this is there will always be debate at the margin over which teams, or even how many teams, truly deserve to be called college football blue bloods. One thing seems pretty clear, though. Whenever the question "Who are the blue blood programs in college football?" comes up, the same seven or eight nationally recognized and celebrated teams are generally always going to make the list, including the Sooners.

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