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The Oklahoma Sooners football team represents the University of Oklahoma (variously "Oklahoma" or "OU") in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision level in the Big 12 Conference. The program began in 1895 and is one of the most successful in history, having won 944 games and possessing a .725 winning percentage, both sixth all-time. Oklahoma has appeared in the AP poll 897 times, including 101 No. 1 rankings, both third all-time. The program claims seven national championships, 50 conference championships, 167 first-team All-Americans (82 consensus, 35 unanimous), and seven Heisman Trophy winners. The school has had 29 former players and coaches inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame and holds the record for the longest winning streak in Division I history with 47 straight victories. Oklahoma is also the only program with which four coaches have won more than 100 games each. The Sooners play their home games at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma. Brent Venables is the head coach and has served since 2022. On July 26, 2021, while showing interest in joining the Southeastern Conference (SEC), the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas sent a joint letter of intent to the Big 12 Conference stating that they do not intend to extend their media rights contracts with the conference, which are set to expire after the 2024 season. In February 2023, the Big 12 announced that the schools had negotiated a combined $100 million early termination fee in order to leave for the SEC in 2024, prior to the expiration of the media rights deals and a year earlier than initially intended. History Early history (1895–1904) The first football game in the university's history was played on December 14, 1895, 12 years before Oklahoma became a state. The team was organized by John A. Harts, a student from Winfield, Kansas. Oklahoma was shut out 34–0 by a more experienced team from Oklahoma City in what was the Sooners' only game that season. Oklahoma failed to record a first down throughout the entire game, which was played on a field of low prairie grass just northwest of the current site of Holmberg Hall. Several members of the Oklahoma team were injured, including Harts. By the end of the game, Oklahoma had borrowed members from the opposing squad so they would have a full lineup. After that year, Harts left Oklahoma to become a gold prospector. After playing two games without a coach in 1896, a professor named Vernon Louis Parrington became head coach in 1897. Parrington had played football at Harvard. In his four years as head coach, Parrington's teams compiled a 9–2–1 record. After the 1900 season, football began interfering with Parrington's teaching, and he stepped down as head coach. He would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1928 at the University of Washington. The Sooners had three more coaches over the next four seasons, beginning with Fred Roberts, who led the Sooners to a 3–2 record in 1901. Mark McMahon followed, finishing 11–7–3 in his two years as coach in 1902 and 1903. Fred Ewing followed McMahon, achieving a 4–3–1 record in 1904. The 1904 season marked the first game of the Bedlam Series between Oklahoma and in-state rival Oklahoma A&M. The game was played on November 6 at Mineral Wells Park in Guthrie, Oklahoma, with Oklahoma winning 75–0. Bennie Owen era (1905–1926) After a decade of football, the program acquired its first long-term head coach in Bennie Owen, a former quarterback of the undefeated 1899 Kansas Jayhawks, led by coach Fielding H. Yost. Owen had previously coached under Yost at Michigan, and was the head coach of the Bethany Swedes teams that had defeated Oklahoma in 1903 and 1904. Owen's first two years at Oklahoma were spent between Norman and Arkansas City since Oklahoma lacked a large enough budget to employ him all year. As a result of these budgetary limitations, Owen would occasionally schedule up to three road games in a single short trip, exhausting his players in the process. However, even early in his tenure, Owen's teams found success. In 1905, Oklahoma won a 2–0 victory over rival Texas, its first in eight tries. In 1908, the Sooners went 8–1–1, losing only to the undefeated Kansas Jayhawks. Owen's 1908 team relied on hand-offs to large runners, as the forward pass was just becoming common. In contrast, his 1911 team had several small and fast players that the quarterback would pass to directly. That team finished 8–0. The Sooners had undefeated seasons in 1915 and 1918. In 1920, Oklahoma moved to the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association after five seasons in the Southwest Conference, of which it was a founding member. In their new conference, OU went 6–0–1 and won the conference title. Owen retired after the 1926 season. During his 22-year career at Oklahoma, he went 122–54–16 (.677), won three conference championships, and achieved four undefeated seasons. In 1951, the inaugural year of the College Football Hall of Fame, he became Oklahoma's first inductee. Between Owen and Wilkinson (1927–1946) In 1927, Adrian Lindsey became Oklahoma's first new head coach in over two decades. Like Owen, Lindsey had played football at Kansas and been the head coach at Bethany College. However, he was unable to achieve Owen's success, resigning quietly after a five-year tenure. The Sooners achieved a notable win in 1930, defeating Nebraska 20–7, the Cornhuskers' worst in-conference loss in two decades. Despite this achievement, Lindsey finished an inconsistent stint in Norman with a 19–19–6 record. Following Lindsey's resignation, Owen, who had remained Oklahoma's athletic director after his retirement from coaching, hired Vanderbilt backfield coach Lewie Hardage as head coach. Upon his hire, Hardage emphasized speed by fabricating new lighter uniforms and trimming the grass on Owen Field. However, in three seasons he failed to produce a successful team. His final record at Oklahoma was 11–12–4, making him the first coach in program history with a losing record aside from John A. Harts, who only coached a single game. Although the next head coach, Lawrence "Biff" Jones, went an unspectacular 9–6–3 across two seasons, his impact on the athletic department's administration and finances was significant. Jones was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954 following a career that also included coaching stints at Army, LSU, and Nebraska. After Jones' departure, assistant coach Tom Stidham became head coach. In 1938, Stidham led the team to a 10–1 record, a fourth-place finish in the final AP poll, and the first bowl game in school history. However, the Sooners lost the Orange Bowl to Tennessee. Although Stidham's other teams would not be as successful, he left Oklahoma after four seasons with a .750 winning percentage, the highest of any coach since Vernon Louis Parrington (.792). Stidham left for Marquette in 1941, and assistant c.... Discover the Gene Wojciechowski Bob Stoops popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Gene Wojciechowski Bob Stoops books.