Oklahoma University Head Football Coach History

The Oklahoma Sooners football program stands as a monument in the landscape of college football, representing the University of Oklahoma with a tradition stretching back to 1895. Over these many seasons, the Sooners have been guided by a series of head coaches, each contributing to the program's rich and storied legacy. This article delves into the history of these coaches, their achievements, and their impact on the Oklahoma Sooners football program.

The Early Years: Laying the Foundation

The University of Oklahoma established its football program in 1895, marking it as the institution's inaugural intercollegiate sport. Early games were organized against local opponents, reflecting the nascent territorial context of Oklahoma before statehood, with the team's initial contests emphasizing regional rivalries to build participation and interest among students. This foundational period saw football emerge as a unifying activity on campus, fostering school spirit through simple, informal competitions that laid the groundwork for organized athletics.

The first football game in the university's history was played on December 14, 1895, before Oklahoma became a state. The team was organized by John A. Harts, a student. Oklahoma was shut out by a 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.

After a decade of football, the program acquired its first long-term head coach in Bennie Owen, a former quarterback. 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.

The Owen Era: Building a Tradition

Bennie Owen coached the Sooners from 1905 to 1926, compiling a 122-54-16 record and establishing Oklahoma as a competitive force. His teams were known for high-scoring offenses, and he was an early advocate for the forward pass following its legalization in 1906, revolutionizing offensive strategies during football's formative years.

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.

The Jones and Stidham Years: Navigating Change

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. Stidham left for Marquette in 1941, and assistant coach Dewey "Snorter" Luster succeeded him. After Luster's first season, a 6-3 campaign, the United States entered World War II.

The Wilkinson Dynasty: An Era of Dominance

Coach Wilkinson arrived in 1947 and soon became an Oklahoma legend. Wilkinson stuck with the Split-T formation he and Tatum installed the year before - an integral part of OU football history and a formation he’d learned at Iowa Pre-Flight under future Missouri coaching legend Don Faurot.

In his first season, the Sooners went 7-2-1 and shared the conference title with Kansas for the second year in a row. In 1950, Wilkinson guided the Sooners to their first national championship, though they lost the Sugar Bowl to Kentucky Wildcats. At the time, the AP and Coaches Polls selected their champions prior to bowl games. The loss snapped a 31-game winning streak that dated back to 1948's season-opening loss to Santa Clara.

"People talk a lot about the tradition of football at Oklahoma. In 1952, Oklahoma had its first Heisman Trophy winner in halfback Billy Vessels, a local player from Cleveland, Oklahoma. Vessels became the first thousand-yard rusher to win the Heisman and scored 18 touchdowns for the Sooners, who finished 8-1-1.

The Sooners went undefeated for the remainder of the 1953 season, culminating in an Orange Bowl victory over national champion Maryland, coached by Jim Tatum. OU went 10-0 in 1954 and 11-0 in 1955, concluding the latter season with another Orange Bowl win over Tatum's Terrapins. The Sooners won the national championship in 1955 and 1956, when they went 10-0, including a 40-0 rout of Notre Dame that marked the 35th win in the streak. From 1954 to 1956, Jimmy Harris made 25 starts at quarterback for the Sooners and never lost a game.

During Wilkinson's tenure, Prentice Gautt became the first black football player at the University of Oklahoma. Gautt had been a superior student at Douglass High School in Oklahoma City, where during his junior and senior years he had helped his team amass a 31-game winning streak. Some members of Gautt's team did not want to play with him; one player even left Oklahoma because he refused to play with an African American. However, most of the team had his support.

Transition and the Wishbone Era

Following a 3-7 season in his second year as head coach, Oklahoma's worst record since its inaugural season in 1895, Jones was replaced by Arkansas assistant Jim Mackenzie. Seeking discipline from his players, Mackenzie set a curfew and required them to enroll in a physical education class. A variant of the wishbone formation with two wide receivers (WR).

In the 1970s, several college football teams began implementing the wishbone offense, a run-based scheme designed to expand the possibilities of the option offense by placing three rushers in the backfield behind the quarterback. In a traditional option play, the quarterback determines which rusher carries the ball by reading the alignment of the defense. The wishbone relies on the triple option, in which the quarterback has three potential candidates to carry the ball (himself and two backfield rushers). One innovation of the wishbone was to place a third rusher in the backfield to serve as a lead blocker.

Head coach Fairbanks and offensive coordinator Barry Switzer were among the early adopters of the wishbone and used it to widespread success. Their 1970 team tied an Alabama squad that also used the wishbone in the Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl. During the next season, the Sooners beat No. 17 USC, No. 3 Texas and No. 6 Colorado in consecutive weeks. After these wins, Oklahoma was ranked second in the country ahead of a "Game of the Century" matchup against top-ranked Nebraska. On November 25, Nebraska edged Oklahoma, 35-31, Oklahoma's only loss of the season. Nebraska went on to win the national championship with a 13-0 record, while Oklahoma went on to beat No.

The Switzer Years: Continued Success and Controversy

Barry Switzer ascended to head coach following the departure of Fairbanks. The Big Eight punished the team with a two-year bowl ban beginning in 1973 and a two-year ban on television appearances beginning in 1974. During the next three years, Oklahoma went 32-1-1 and won three straight conference championships. They claimed back-to-back national championships in 1974 and 1975, the two years in which they could not appear on television during the regular season. Oklahoma performed exceptionally well during their probation. In 1973, the Sooners played seven ranked teams, beat six of them, tied No.

Following the 1975 season, several key players left the team. Defensive tackle Lee Roy Selmon was selected first overall in the 1976 NFL draft, and Washington was taken three picks later. Davis departed and was replaced at quarterback by Dean Blevins, who was unable to match his predecessor's contributions in the running game. In 1978, Oklahoma would get their third Heisman Trophy winner in running back Billy Sims, who rushed for 1,896 yards and broke the Big Eight regular season rushing record. The Sooners finished third in the final AP poll after an Orange Bowl victory over Nebraska, the closest they came to a national championship in the second half of the 1970s. During the 1970s, Switzer's teams went 73-7-2 in seven years, and the Sooners won the Big Eight every year from 1972 to 1980. However, during the early 1980s, the team's performance worsened.

Switzer's teams returned to contention for the national championship during the next three seasons, earning an 11-1 record and a Big Eight title in each. However, in all three years, the Sooners lost to Miami. In 1985, the Sooners won the national championship despite their loss, rebounding to defeat top-ranked Penn State in the Orange Bowl. In 1986, the Sooners won another Orange Bowl but finished No. 3 behind Penn State and Miami, who had faced each other for the national championship in the Fiesta Bowl. In 1987, the Sooners played in two No. 1 vs. No. 2 games in a row, defeating top-ranked Nebraska to end their regular season undefeated before facing Miami in the Orange Bowl to decide the national title.

Switzer's tenure ended in scandal. After the 1988 season, the NCAA placed the Sooners on probation for violating several rules, including offering improper benefits to players and recruits. In one example, a recruit was offered $1,000 to enroll at the university. It was determined that Switzer had personally paid for rental cars for students entertaining recruits on campus. Meanwhile, several of his players were in trouble with the law. Switzer's ouster marked the beginning of what Stan Dorsey, writing for The Sporting News, called "a pratfall of unspeakable scope and unfathomable dimension" for the Sooners.

Struggling Through the 90s

Defensive coordinator Gary Gibbs was promoted to head coach. At the time, Gibbs had spent his entire adult life in Norman as a player (1971-1974), graduate assistant (1975-1977), full-time assistant (1978-1980) and defensive coordinator (1981-1988). Dorsey characterized Gibbs as being uncomfortable around alumni and the media, as well as with being a head coach in general. During his six-year tenure, while Oklahoma attempted to recover from probation, the team finished a combined 44-23-2, never reaching higher than second in the conference or No.

Gibbs was replaced by Howard Schnellenberger, whose resume included a national championship at Miami. Convinced that the 1994 Copper Bowl loss to BYU was "clearly the lowest point in the great history of Oklahoma football," Schnellenberger sought to reshape the program, beginning by ordering files from previous seasons to be thrown out. Instead, they were archived without his knowledge. Schnellenberger often said that "they will write books and make movies about my time [at Oklahoma]," and his first team started out well. The Sooners rose to No.

Oklahoma then hired former player John Blake as head coach. Although he was Switzer's preferred candidate, Blake had very little experience, having spent his entire career as a position coach. In the 101 years preceding Blake's hire, Oklahoma had nine losing seasons. Under Blake, the Sooners had three losing seasons in three years. The team's eight losses in 1996 set a team record that was matched the following season. Blake's 12-22 record gave him the worst winning percentage of any Oklahoma head coach since the single-game tenure of John A. Despite his poor record as head coach, Blake contributed to success after his tenure by recruiting several players who would help the program's resurgence under his successor, Bob Stoops.

The Stoops Era: Return to Glory

Oklahoma began the 2000 season ranked No. 19 in the AP poll, their first preseason AP poll appearance in five years. After a 4-0 start, the Sooners defeated No. 11 Texas 63-14; running back Quentin Griffin broke a school record with six rushing touchdowns in the game. The next week, the Sooners beat No. 2 Kansas State 41-31, then defeated top-ranked Nebraska 31-14 two weeks later, finishing out a stretch that would be remembered as "Red October". The Sooners finished the regular season undefeated and beat Kansas State in the conference championship game to win their first conference title since 1987.

In the years since that victory, the Big Eight had dissolved and the Sooners had joined its successor conference, the Big 12. Additionally, the BCS format had been established, with each season culminating in a national championship game between the top two teams in the system's rankings. Oklahoma was ranked No. 1 following the conference championship win and played Florida State in the Orange Bowl for the BCS title.

In the following years, Oklahoma contended for conference and national championships and qualified for major bowl games. In 2001, after rivalry losses to Nebraska and Oklahoma State, Oklahoma did not earn a spot in the conference championship game. However, the Sooners were granted a Cotton Bowl Classic berth, their first in school history, and subsequently defeated Arkansas. In 2002, the Sooners won the Big 12 and advanced to the Rose Bowl for the first time, defeating No.

Oklahoma went undefeated in the regular season in both 2003 and 2004. In 2003, the Sooners defeated Texas A&M 77-0 and Texas 65-13, the latter being the biggest win in Red River Rivalry history. Led by Heisman Trophy winner Jason White, OU was ranked No. 1 in every AP poll of the season until an upset in the Big 12 Championship Game by Kansas State dropped them to third. However, the Sooners remained No. 1 in the BCS rankings and were thus able to play for the national championship in the Sugar Bowl, which they subsequently lost to LSU. White, a Tuttle, Oklahoma native, threw for 3,846 yards and 40 touchdowns in his Heisman campaign but was kept in check by the LSU defense, completing just over 35 percent of his passes and throwing two interceptions.

The next year, freshman running back Adrian Peterson emerged as a star with 1,925 yards and 15 touchdowns on the ground. He finished second in Heisman voting behind USC quarterback Matt Leinart. The AP, Coaches Poll, and BCS all ranked USC at No. 1 and Oklahoma at No. 2 in every poll of the season until the two met in the Orange Bowl for the national championship. In 2005, the Sooners fell out of the AP poll for…

The Riley Era and Beyond

Lincoln Riley was a walk-on quarterback for Mike Leach at Texas Tech. Leach quickly recognized his coaching genius and added him to the Texas Tech staff, and soon enough, the precocious Riley was calling plays for Ruffin McNeill at East Carolina. When Stoops hired Riley as offensive coordinator in 2015, Riley was but 32 years old.

His offensive innovations and his clever play designs quickly elevated him both nationally and in Stoops’ eyes. And when Stoops decided he’d coached long enough, he resigned with the knowledge that Riley would be his hand-picked replacement. Riley's first squad finished 12-2, including an excruciating overtime Rose Bowl loss to Georgia in the College Football Playoff in which he may have outreached himself after jumping to an early lead.

Riley won several Big 12 titles and made playoff trips, but his departure for USC alienated him with Sooner Nation. His legacy is complicated. OU fans will forever declare him Public Enemy No. 1, but he’ll also always be the first guy to coach back-to-back Heisman Trophy winners.

Like many of his predecessors, new Oklahoma coach Brent Venables had never been a head coach before his time with the Sooners.

Head Coaches First Year Performance

Coach	Year	Record
Lincoln Riley	2017	12-2
Bob Stoops	1999	7-5
John Blake	1996	3-8
Howard Schnellenberger	1995	5-5-1
Gary Gibbs	1989	7-4
Barry Switzer	1973	10-0-1

Championship Summary

The Oklahoma Sooners football program, under its head coaches, has achieved 50 conference championships since joining organized conference play in 1915, establishing it as one of the most dominant programs in college football history. These titles are distributed across five conferences: the Southwest Conference and Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SWC/MVIAA) with 3, the Big Six Conference with 5, the Big Seven Conference with 10, the Big Eight Conference with 18, and the Big 12 Conference with 14. No conference titles have been won since joining the Southeastern Conference (SEC) in 2024.

On the national stage, Sooners head coaches have guided the team to 7 recognized national championships, all awarded by major selectors during the AP Poll era, reinforcing the program's elite status.

Hall of Fame Coaches

Several Oklahoma Sooners head football coaches have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, recognizing their exceptional records, innovative contributions, and lasting influence on the sport. Bennie Owen, Lawrence "Biff" Jones, Bud Wilkinson, Jim Tatum, Barry Switzer and Bob Stoops.

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