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Five Best Sooner Football Season-Openers Over Last 70 Seasons
For those among us who are diehard Oklahoma fans, the one redeeming factor about the final days of summer is that they always usher in the start a of new Sooner football season.
Sep 5, 2015; Norman, OK, USA; The Oklahoma Sooners take the field prior to action against the Akron Zips at Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports
The Sooners generally begin the season in front of the home fans at spacious and loud Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, but that isn’t the case this year.
Oklahoma is headed south for a headline nonconference encounter with the University of Houston, supposedly on a neutral field (NRG Stadium), but hardly so when you consider that the venue is a mere 15 minutes away from the heart of the UH campus.
Unlike other two-game, home-and-home series that OU agrees to in putting together most of its nonconference slate several years out, the Sooners don’t get the home half of the Houston series until the 2019 season.
I’ll get into the game preview itself in a couple more days, but the point of this piece is to talk about the mostly ups, but some downs surrounding Sooner football season openers.
Oklahoma lost its very first season-opening football game in 1895. It was also the one and only game that season. The Sooners played an Oklahoma City town team and were soundly beaten by a score of 34-0. OU would not lose a game for the next three seasons, but at that point in time, the seasons were only two-games long.
Over the next 114 years, Oklahoma would win 91 times in its first game of the season, a winning percentage of better than 80 percent. Overall, the Sooners own a record of 94-22-5 in season openers.
The Sooners have started the season at home 74 times in 121 seasons; 46 times they have begun the season on the road; and one season-opener (2009) was played on a neutral field (vs. BYU at then Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas).
Barry Switzer’s Oklahoma teams from 1973 to 1988 won 15 of 16 season-opening contests, a winning percentage of .938. the highest of the four Sooner head coaches who won more than 100 games at OU. Switzer’s lone opening-game loss in 16 seasons on the Sooner sidelines as head coach came in 1982 at home against a non-ranked West Virginia team. Oklahoma was ranked ninth in the country to begin that season.
Bob Stoops is just a step behind Switzer, with a 15-2 record in the Sooners opening game of the season.
One of those two first-game losses under Stoops, however, was against a ranked team. The Sooners lost their season opener in 2009, 14-13 to BYU, in a game in which the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, OU quarterback Sam Bradford, went down with a shoulder injury in the first half. That was the only time, before this Saturday, that Oklahoma has played a ranked team on opening day under Stoops.
It may surprise you to learn that of OU’s four coaches with 100-plus wins, Bud Wilkinson fared the worst in season openers.
Wilkinson’s 11-5 record in opening games was modest by Oklahoma standards. That should probably come with an asterisk, however, because five of the opening games during the Wilkinson era were against ranked opponents, something that has only occurred eight times total in Sooner history before this season.
Here is what I consider to be the five best season-opening games for Oklahoma in the past 70 years, or since 1946 (and not necessarily because they were Sooner wins, because only three of them were):
Oct 17, 2015; South Bend, IN, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish run onto the field before the game against the Southern California Trojans at Notre Dame Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports
Sept. 26, 1953 – Notre Dame 28, Oklahoma 21
This was only the second time Oklahoma and Notre Dame had battled each other on a football field. The year before, in 1952, they played their inaugural game, with the Fighting Irish winning 27-21 in South Bend, Ind.
The next season, they met in the season opener in Norman. The Sooners came into the 1953 season ranked No. 6 in the nation, but Notre Dame was the nation’s top-ranked team. Oklahoma took an early 14-7 lead, but Notre Dame came back to tie the game at 14 going into halftime. The Fighting Irish scored the next 14 points to take a 28-14 lead.
The Sooners weren’t finished though. They scored on a 55-yard interception return for a touchdown by Merrill Green, and had another opportunity to score late in the game, when Notre Dame’s Johnny Lattner intercepted a pass from OU’s Buddy Leake, sealing a 28-21 victory for the Irish.
This game was significant in Oklahoma football history for another reason. It was the last game the Sooners would lose for 48 consecutive games. They tied Pittsburgh 7-7 on the road the following weekend. The next weekend, Oklahoma beat Texas 19-14 in the annual Red River rivalry game, the first of what would become an unprecedented 47 consecutive wins.
Oct 3, 2015; Norman, OK, USA; West Virginia Mountaineers running back Wendell Smallwood (4) is pursued by Oklahoma Sooners safety Steven Parker (10) in the second quarter at Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports
Sept. 27, 1958 – Oklahoma 47, West Virginia 14
Oklahoma began the 1958 season as the No. 2 team in the nation in the Associated Press Preseason Top 25. The previous 10 seasons, the Sooners had won three national championships and finished no lower than 10th in the final AP rankings.
West Virginia was no slouch, either. The Mountaineers came to Norman in late Sept. (that is when the college season used to start back in the 1950s) that season ranked 13th in the country. Coach Bud Wilkinson employed a two-quarterback system for this game, using Dave Baker and Bobby Boyd as signal callers. Baker rushed for 78 yards in the game, while Boyd completed nine passes (a lot for those days in Norman) for 141 yards and two touchdowns. The Sooners ended up winning the game 47-14.
Nov 27, 2015; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Pittsburgh Panthers offensive lineman Artie Rowell (57) addresses the team on senior day before the Panthers host the Miami Hurricanes at Heinz Field. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
Sept. 21, 1957 – Oklahoma 26, Pittsburgh 0
Oklahoma began the 1957 season having won its last 40 games over the previous three and a half seasons. The Sooners were ranked No. 1 in country in the preseason polls, having won their third national championship the year before. They began the 1957 season away from home at the University of Pittsburgh, which came into the game ranked No. 8 in the country.
The game didn’t really live up to its billing, with Oklahoma taking control from the very start and never letting up. According to an account in the Oklahoma Football Encyclopedia, the Sooners rushed for 310 yards in the game, but scored on three touchdown passes. Meanwhile the Oklahoma defense held Pittsburgh to 173 yards of total offense on the afternoon. At the end of the day, the scoreboard read: Oklahoma 26, Pittsburgh 0, and the Sooners had recorded their 41st consecutive win.
Oct 24, 2015; Norman, OK, USA; The Oklahoma Sooners take the field prior to action against the Texas Tech Red Raiders at Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports
Sept 21, 1968 – Notre Dame 45, Oklahoma 21
This season-opening matchup between these two college football goliaths was the eighth meeting all-time, and the Sooners had prevailed in just one of the seven previous games. Both teams were ranked in the top five to start the season: Notre Dame at No. 3 and Oklahoma in the No. 5 spot in the AP rankings.
According to an account of the game in the Oklahoma City Oklahoman newspaper, OU took an early 14-7 lead, but a touchdown pass by Notre Dame quarterback Terry Hanratty just before halftime gave the Fighting Irish a 21-14 advantage at the intermission.
Notre Dame outscored the Sooners 24-7 in the second half, rolling up much of its 571 yards of total offense in the game in the final 30 minutes. The Irish pounded the ground against the Oklahoma defense, rushing for 357 yards.
After the game, OU head coach Chuck Fairbanks was quoted as saying:
“There were no psychological ups and downs for us…We got beat because Notre Dame has a much better football team than we have.”
Next: Sept. 6, 1986 - Oklahoma 38, UCLA 3
Sep 19, 2015; Pasadena, CA, USA; UCLA Bruins running back Paul Perkins (24) is hugged by teammates after running for a touchdown in the third quarter of the game against the Brigham Young Cougars at the Rose Bowl. Ucla won 24-23.Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
Sept. 6, 1986 – Oklahoma 38, UCLA 3
The season-opening game in Barry Switzer’s 14th season as head coach at Oklahoma was a home date for the Sooners, hosting No. 4-ranked UCLA in the AP preseason poll. The Sooners entered the game ranked No. 1 for the second straight season following their national championship season the year before.
UCLA had won the Pac-10 Conference crown in three of the previous four season and had been victorious in four consecutive bowl appearances between 1983 and 1986 (three in the Rose Bowl and one Fiesta Bowl win). The Bruins also featured a veteran head coach, Terry Donahue, who was beginning his 11th season.
The first quarter of the game was little more than a sparring match, with the Sooners taking a 3-0 lead on a field goal by Tim Lashar. UCLA tied the score four plays into the second quarter, and from that point it was all Oklahoma, as chronicled in an article on SoonerStats.com recapping the game.
The Sooners led 17-3 at the half, but more impressive, the OU wishbone offense out-rushed the Bruins 219 to 25 and out-gained them 228-89 in the opening 30 minutes. Oklahoma controlled the ball for a good 20 minutes in the first half, doubling the time of possession by UCLA.
Oklahoma took complete control of the game in the second half, continuing to pummel the UCLA defense on the ground, while shutting down the Bruins offense on the defensive end. The Sooner defense limited UCLA to 34 total yards on the ground and just 155 offensive yards overall. OU finished the game with 470 rushing yards, averaging over six yards per carry.
The 38-3 loss was the worst opening-game loss by a UCLA football team in 56 years.
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