Oklahoma's dying coaching tree orchard
Regular winning under consistent leadership has been the hallmark of Sooner football, but is it now over?
There’s a certain attitude Oklahoma football has had in relationship to their rivals in Austin I’ve always observed. An attitude of great confidence and even arrogance about their relative positions in the league. For the last decade, every Texas offseason has been about trying to get back on the wagon, while every Sooner offseason the message has basically been “we are the wagon.”
Consider this, since the Big 12 was formed for the 1996 season the two programs have put up the following results.
Texas
143-76 in the Big 12 (66% winning percentage)
Three Big 12 Championships
One National Championship
Two BCS title game appearances, zero playoff appearances
Six losing seasons (97, 10, 14, 15, 16, 21)
Oklahoma
168-52 in the Big 12 (76% winning percentage)
14 Big 12 Championships
One National Championship
Four BCS title game appearances, four playoff appearances
Three losing seasons (96, 97, 98)
The Sooners have unquestionably had a stronger run during the Big 12 era and are 16-10 against Texas in the Red River Shootout since the Big 12 was formed and 17-10 against Texas overall (one Big 12 Championship Game bout).
While Texas has shifted through coaching hires since jettisoning Mack Brown in 2013, the Sooners have had a stable run at the top…until recently.
The feeling in Norman, at least among the young portions of the fanbase, seems to be that Oklahoma is different than Texas and less vulnerable to the same sorts of bad spells. Yet this mythos around the program has been taking some massive hits in the last year which lead to questions about the trajectory of Sooner football.
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