How Has Oklahoma Fared Against New Big 12?

Down through history, the Sooners have had some surprisingly mixed results against the league's newest additions.

Tuesday’s release of the 2023 Big 12 Conference football schedule certainly turns an eye toward the future.

But considering Oklahoma and the rest of the league welcome four new members, it’s also a good time to examine the past.

BYU Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston bring the league’s new membership to 14. That number complicates what with 10 teams was a no-brainer scheduling matrix.

Oklahoma State is the only existing member who plays all four newcomers this season. Oklahoma will play three of them: BYU, Cincinnati and UCF. The Sooners play the Knights at home and hit the road to visit the Cougars and Bearcats.

So how has OU fare in the past against the new Big 12?

The Sooners have never played Central Florida, but are 2-0 all-time against Cincinnati and 3-1 against Houston, with the loss coming in a shocking 2016 loss to the Cougars at NRG Stadium. (OU’s most recent game with Houston was the 2019 season opener in Norman, a 49-31 Oklahoma victory.)

BYU, however, is another story. OU has never beaten the Cougars and is 0-2 against BYU — both in neutral site games.

Both times, the Sooners endured a monumental, program-shifting setback.

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

That disaster officially distanced the program from the tumultuous end of the Barry Switzer era, as Howard Schnellenberger replaced Gibbs — he actually watched the Copper Bowl from the press box and talked to the media at the game — and was replaced less than a year later by John Blake.

Oklahoma also lost to the Cougars to open the 2009 season. Coming off a loss to Florida in the national championship game the year before, OU returned ’08 Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford, star running back DeMarco Murray, All-Americans Gerald McCoy, Jermaine Gresham, Trent Williams and more, and the Sooners were a heavy favorite to finally win another national title.

But all that changed toward the end of the first half in Arlington’s brand new AT&T Stadium — the very first football game played there — as BYU linebacker Coleby Clawson blitzed Bradford’s rebuilt offensive line, hit the quarterback and wrecked his right shoulder. Freshman Landry Jones replaced Bradford, but the Sooners suffered a 14-13 defeat on their way to a disappointing 8-5 season.

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