How Has Oklahoma Fared Against New Big 12?

Tuesday’s launch of the 2023 Massive 12 Convention soccer schedule actually turns a watch towards the long run.

However contemplating Oklahoma and the remainder of the league welcome 4 new members, it’s additionally a very good time to look at the previous.

BYU Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston convey the league’s new membership to 14. That quantity complicates what with 10 groups was a no brainer scheduling matrix.

No current member performs all 4 newcomers this season. Oklahoma will play three of them: BYU, Cincinnati and UCF.

So how has OU fare prior to now in opposition to the brand new Massive 12?

The Sooners have by no means performed Central Florida, however are 2-0 all-time in opposition to Cincinnati and 3-1 in opposition to Houston, with the loss coming in a stunning 2016 loss to the Cougars at NRG Stadium. (OU’s most up-to-date sport with Houston was the 2019 season opener in Norman, a 49-31 Oklahoma victory.)

BYU, nonetheless, is one other story. OU has by no means crushed the Cougars and is 0-2 in opposition to BYU — each in impartial website video games.

Each occasions, the Sooners endured a monumental, program-shifting setback.

OU ended the 1994 season — and the Gary Gibbs period — with a 31-6 loss to LaVell Edwards’ Cougars within the Copper Bowl in Tucson, AZ, leaving the Sooners with a depressing 6-6 report. It was this system’s most losses and first non-winning report since going 3-7 in 1965.

That catastrophe formally distanced this system from the tumultuous finish of the Barry Switzer period, as Howard Schnellenberger changed Gibbs — he really watched the Copper Bowl from the press field and talked to the media on the sport — and was changed lower than a yr later by John Blake.

Oklahoma additionally misplaced to the Cougars to open the 2009 season. Coming off a loss to Florida within the nationwide championship sport the yr earlier than, OU returned ’08 Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford, star operating again DeMarco Murray, All-Individuals Gerald McCoy, Jermaine Gresham, Trent Williams and extra, and the Sooners had been a heavy favourite to lastly win one other nationwide title.

However all that modified towards the tip of the primary half in Arlington’s model new AT&T Stadium — the very first soccer sport performed there — as BYU linebacker Coleby Clawson blitzed Bradford’s rebuilt offensive line, hit the quarterback and wrecked his proper shoulder. Freshman Landry Jones changed Bradford, however the Sooners suffered a 14-13 defeat on their method to a disappointing 8-5 season.

The yr earlier than, in 2008, Bradford fueled OU’s 52-26 victory over Cincinnati in Norman. The yr after, in 2010, Jones led OU to a 31-29 victory over Cincinnati at Paul Brown Stadium.