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.

[10][12] Oklahoma failed to record a first down throughout the entire game,[12] which was played on a field of low prairie grass just northwest of the current site of Holmberg Hall.

[11] 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.

[further explanation needed][11] 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.

[33][34] 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).

The person who started that tradition was Bud Wilkinson," Oklahoma native and Hall of Fame wide receiver Steve Largent later said.

[50] The Sooners went undefeated for the remainder of the 1953 season, culminating in an Orange Bowl victory over national champion Maryland,[51] coached by Jim Tatum.

[51] In addition to their back-to-back national championships during the streak, the Sooners won 14 straight conference titles from 1946 to 1959, one under Jim Tatum and 13 under Wilkinson.

[44] 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.

[74] Led by quarterback Jack Mildren and running back Greg Pruitt, Oklahoma's wishbone offense averaged 44.5 points per game, at the time the second most in team history.

[96] The win allowed Oklahoma to claim a share of the Big Eight championship and receive an Orange Bowl bid against Washington, a game they subsequently lost.

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.

[100] In 1988, the Sooners finished 9–3,[101] with highlights including a 70–24 win against Kansas State in which the team rushed for 768 yards, which remains an FBS record.

[87] 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.

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.

[115] 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.

[118][121] The team produced consensus All-Americans for the first time since 1988,[2] including quarterback Josh Heupel, who finished runner-up for the Heisman in one of the closest votes in the award's history to that point.

[125][127] 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.

In the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, the Sooners lost a back-and-forth game in overtime when Boise State executed a Statue of Liberty play on a two-point conversion attempt to win 43–42.

[135] Prior to the 2007 season, the NCAA announced sanctions due to violations committed by players on the 2005 team who had been paid for unperformed work at a Norman car dealership.

[136] The NCAA found Oklahoma guilty of a "failure to monitor" the improper employment benefits and punished the team by vacating its victories from the 2005 season.

However, Oklahoma remained competitive throughout the rest of the BCS era, including a 2014 Sugar Bowl win over defending national champions Alabama.

[148] In his first season, Riley led the Sooners to 12 wins, besting the 10-win record held by Chuck Fairbanks and Barry Switzer for most victories by a first-year coach in program history.

[171]: 13  In addition, in ten years other than those seven championship seasons, Oklahoma has appeared atop lists by selectors designated by the NCAA as "major", primarily using math rating formulas.

[15] Ten coaches have led the Sooners to postseason bowl games: Tom Stidham, Jim Tatum, Bud Wilkinson, Gomer Jones, Chuck Fairbanks, Barry Switzer, Gary Gibbs, Bob Stoops, Riley, and Venables.

Nine coaches have won conference championships with the Sooners: Bennie Owen, Stidham, Dewey Luster, Tatum, Wilkinson, Fairbanks, Switzer, Stoops, and Riley.

Six Sooner coaches (Owen, Lawrence Jones, Tatum, Wilkinson, Switzer, and Stoops) have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

With his experience as an army medic, Keys landed a job with the football team and a residence at the Kappa Sigma fraternity house.

[196] The Schooner is maintained and driven by members of the RUF/NEKS, the university's all-male spirit organization, along with two white ponies named Boomer and Sooner.

In addition, Oklahoma is tied with Stanford with the second-most runner-up finishes with six: Kurt Burris, Greg Pruitt, Billy Sims, Josh Heupel, Adrian Peterson and Jalen Hurts.