Thanks! I need to get busy doing the rest before the season starts. I have been out of town for a while and just got home
1983 This year is going to be one of the hardest to find a favorite game. The Ohio State game was a lose. The Missouri game in Columbia was a lose. I didn’t go to Stillwater to witness that game so it’s out. The Nebraska game was a lose but even at that I am going to pick that as my favorite just because Nebraska was suppose to kill us. I took my wife’s nephew and it was cold and drizzling rain all the way up and continued to do that the whole game. It was one of the rare, at the time, night games but the way the weather was I wish it had been a day game. The game went back and forth and some of you younger people may have seen Spencer Tillman’s 5 yard leap into the end zone. To this day I don’t know how he jumped that far to score. With OU down by 7 with time running out we drove down to the goal line with a chance to tie or win the game. One of our linemen moved and that put us back just outside the five yard line. A couple of incomplete passes later and the Nebraska Cornhusker were off to Miami to lay claim to their third National Title. The only thing that makes this game, being a lose, one of my favorite was the fact Nebraska had only been played close once all year and not many people were giving us any chance of even hanging with them. With the triplets of Mike Rozier, Turner Gill and Irving Fryar this team was unbeatable. Or were they?
this is awesome. seeing all the younger fans who have ony been around for the last 15 years makes me wonder if they'll appreciate the 80's sooners that i grew up on. but reading these makes me appreciate the 70's sooner teams that i was never fortunate enough to see. keep 'em coming, this is awesome!!!
1984 As hard as it was to pick a favorite game for 1983 it was just that easy to pick my favorite game in 1984. 1984 included the infamous Texas tie, from which I am still trying to dry out. I have never been madder after a ball game then I was after this screw job. On Texas last drive we recovered a fumble they didn’t give us, had a phantom pass interference penalty called and then to top it all off the Keith Stanberry interception was ruled out of bounds. But enough about that because I am getting mad just thinking about it on with my favorite game for 1984. This year marked my forth true away game and favorite of 1984 Colorado. The game was played in November and when we planed to go, at the start of the season, we weren’t really sure what kind of weather we would have in store for us. Funny thing it was in the 70’s when we landed in Denver on Friday and mid 70’s for the game on Saturday. With the Rocky Mountains as the back drop it is hard to beat going to a game in Boulder. OU had the Texas tie and a lose to Kansas going into the game with the lose to Kansas coming when Danny Bradley was injured and a freshman QB by the name of Troy something or other led us to a lose in Lawrence. We stayed in a hotel that was within walking distance of the stadium and we could see it out the window of our room. Friday evening we got in our rental car and got something to eat and then just messed around Boulder for a while. When we got back to the hotel, a couple of hours later, there were six or seven fire trucks and a couple of police cars all with their lights flashing. We parked the car and started up to the hotel. A police officer ask us if we were staying there and we told him yes and showed him our key. He told us someone had set off the fire alarm on the forth floor and the sprinkler system had come on and had soaked everything on that floor. I sure was glad we were staying on the sixth floor. We got on the elevator to go to our room and I pushed the button for four. When the doors opened there was water everywhere. The next day we went to the game and heard that Texas had already lost. We stood by the the ramp as the Sooner we waiting to take the field and I told Boz “Hey Texas got beat”. He just grinned at me and shot me an upside down horn. The game was a complete blow out with OU winning 42-17 and the game wasn’t that close. Lydell Carr had a big game and the defense pretty much had their way with the Buffalos. It was probably just as well too because this was still during the time that they sold beer at the games and it might have gotten ugly if it had been close. As it was there were a lot of people left at half-time and the ones that stayed were awfully quite. I still have never been to game that wasn’t a conference championship that they had vendors going through the stands selling beer. I will be going back to Boulder next year with my youngest son as Boulder is the only Big 12 venue he hasn’t seen OU play.
1985 1985 was a strange season in several ways. The home opener was supposed to be September 14 against SMU but ABC asks if we would change the game to December 1 for television. SMU and OU both agreed to move the game. Now a Sept 14th home opener is late anyway but to top it off we had an open week between SMU and our second game of the season at Minnesota. This meant our first game of the year wasn’t until September 28th and our first home game that year was the October 19th home opener against Miami. Can you imagine the reaction if in 2006 our first home game was still two months away? The next thing that was strange about 1985 was the fact that we were the AP preseason number one team, finished the season ranked number one, but we never played a game the entire season ranked number one. By the time we had played our first game that year several teams had already played three and some four games. We fell out of the number one spot without ever playing a game and fell all the way to tenth after losing to Miami. The only other time we were ranked number one again that season, was after Tennessee beat Miami in the Sugar Bowl and we dispatched Penn State in the Orange Bowl. I have tried to find someone else that may have accomplished this feat but have not been able to do so. The last thing that made this such a strange year was the fact that Troy got his leg broke in the Miami game and we had to count on a true freshman in Jamelle Holieway to lead us the rest of the year. Funny thing was after the Miami game was over I wasn’t worried about the rest of the season just by the way Holieway handled the offense. He looked like a junior or senior calling the plays. Now to my favorite game. This year like 1984 was an easy game to pick and it would be the Nebraska game. Nebraska came into the game ranked number two and if we were going to entertain any thoughts of winning the National Title we had to beat the Cornhuskers. Our defense played lights out and shutout the Bugeatters offense. If not for them stripping the ball and running it all the way back in the closing seconds of the game we would have shut them out. Of course the big play of the day was Keith Jackson taking an end around pitch and going 70 something yards for a touchdown. OU moved the ball up and down the field and Nebraska was never in this game from the start. This was the second most dominating game I have ever seen OU play against Nebraska with the 1973 shutout being the most.
I was not even 2 at the time but us Sooners are damn happy that the Tennessee Volunteers defeated the Miami Hurricanes in the bowl game to have made it possible for the Sooners to win it all.
My first year as an OU RUFNEK and I got to fly in a private lear jet to Lincoln for the OU/Nebraska game in '76. Cold as you can get...drinking heavily...on the sideline right by the goal line when we threw the hook and ladder and then Peacock in for the score......for the win!!! It even got better...all of the other Rufneks faced a long, long drive but we were back in OKC (where it was warm) in less than 2 hours having a steak dinner and toasting to the great comeback win and tie for the Big 8 Championship! It was COOL! Your memory is unbelieveable!!!
Sorry I have not done any season recaps in a while but I promise to get 86 & 87 up by the end of this weekend.
I was at that game. At the beginning of the second quarter, we were up 14-0. Dad took me to the bathroom, because I just couldn't hold it anymore. We just figured it'd be okay, given that we looked so good starting out (great runs by Steve Sewell and Kelly Phelps)and we didn't want to get stuck behind the halftime line. Besides, I couldn't hold it anymore, remember? Well...seems Mr. Hostetler had some offense of his own, because by the time we got back to our seats, West Virginia was up 20-14. Dad hasn't let me live it down. To this day, he still brings up the 'bathroom break for 20 points'. Sure wish we could have stayed in OK and maintained OUr season tickets. Nothing beats a Saturday spent in Norman.
1986 Coming off a National Championship season, with nearly everyone back it looked like we had a shot at number seven if we could just get by Miami. It wasn’t to be. Before I get into my favorite game that I attended this year I want to say something about my favorite game that I didn’t attend. Not just in 1986 but EVER! This of coarse would be the Nebraska game in Lincoln. OU was down 17-10, with right at five minutes to go in the game and having to go 90 yards to even score. We then, pulled out, in my opinion, the greatest comeback win ever. When we scored to make the score 17-16 Keith Jackson was saying “They have to go for two” but that was not the case since a tie would put us in the Orange Bowl. We kicked the extra point and the crowd in Lincoln erupted in a thunderous course of boos. Then Tom Osborne showed the coaching ability that kept him from having more then three national titles, by running three plays that all stopped the clock and then punting into a monster wind. We get the ball back and with almost no time on the clock, Jamelle Holieway hit Keith Jackson with a pass down the sideline. He gets knocked out of bounds inside the twenty where Tim Lashar nailed the game winning field goal. I have watched the final five minutes of that game so many times it isn’t funny. Now to my favorite game. The OU defense in 1973, 1974, 1986 and 2000 were as good as I have ever seen in Norman. This 1986 group was one of those four. They swarmed people, with The Boz leading the way, and the 1986 Texas game was his showcase. OU came out and completely dominated Texas in every aspect of the game. Few are the times that you can’t wait for the other team to get the ball just so you can watch the defense play. This was one of them. Bosworth was all over the field and Texas didn’t have an answer for him or anyone else on our defense. The offense moved the ball at will and this game was over before it ever got started. Anytime you beat Texas it is a good feeling but this was really special since it would be Bosworth’s last Texas game but he did everything he could to make it one to remember.
1987 Once again we have a great shot to win a title and no Miami. At least in the regular season anyway. If we had been in any other conference we wouldn’t have had to play them in the Orange Bowl and would have probably stayed #1 with a bowl win but that’s the breaks. If not for Miami we go undefeated three years in a row and are the only team to win back to back to back titles. This was the saddest season ever for me as a Sooner fan. The fact we lost the Orange Bowl and the national title to Miami felt like a mosquito bite compared to the third degree burn pain I felt in April losing the Final Four championship game to Kansas in basketball. I have never before and will never again experience that kind of pain over any OU sporting event. But that’s basketball and this is football so onto the 1987 season favorite game. My favorite game of the 1987 season was the first game of the year against North Texas. How in the world, you ask, can that be my favorite game. It’s because it was the first game my oldest son ever attended at the tender age of five. Back in those days the Ruf-Neks had the Sooner Schooner out on the north side of the stadium and for $10 dollars you could have your picture made on the Schooner and they would mail it to you a few days later with the date, opponent and score on the picture. That picture of my son seated on the Schooner is still one of my favorite things I ever got at an OU game. The game itself was lack luster but the memory of having my son at the game with me for the first time makes it the favorite of 1987. Something else about the 1987 season. The Big 8 screwed us by making us play Nebraska in Lincoln two years in a row. All the other teams in the Big 8 always played OU and Nebraska at home in the same year and they wanted to split it up so that each team could have a marquee draw every year and not two powerhouse teams one year and the rest of the conference in the next. What the conference did, for example, was make us play OSU in Norman in 86 & 87 and they had Nebraska at home both those years. This was done conference wide to get OU in one year and Nebraska the next for the other six teams. WELL WHY HECK DID WE HAVE TO GO TO LINCOLN TWO YEARS IN A ROW WHEN IT WAS THE OTHER SIX TEAMS SCHEDULE THAT THEY WERE TRYING TO FIX??? The OU/Nebraska series should have just continued home and home in those two years but by doing so we missed undefeated OU vs. undefeated Nebraska in what was billed as “The Game of the Century II” The final score was 17-7 but it wasn’t really that close. One last thing about 1987. If Jamelle Holieway doesn’t tear his leg up in the OSU game we beat Miami, in my opinion, even playing in their backyard.
i was at that game too. i remember listening to an interview with Don Nehlan on the car radio driving around with my pops doing his Saturday "errands" before going to the game.
1988 There was a storm brewing in the distance and it was going to be a rough one to ride out. Never in a million years did I imagine that this would be "The Kings" last year as the coach. Never dreamed that the NCAA was lurking around the corner. Never saw the the next decade of Sooner football being the worst in my lifetime. Boy if there had been an internet back then I can't imagine what it would have been like. Now onto my favorite game of 1988. The only game that would even come close would be the Texas game. Even though Texas was only 4-7 it was still Texas. If we had beaten Nebraska that would have been it since it was "The Kings" last game to ever coach on Owen Field but it was not to be. I remember being at work and a friend of mine called and said” turn on your radio" Switzer is getting ready to resign". I turned over and sat in disbelief as everything unfolded. It was my saddest day as an OU football fan.
1989 Boy this is where it starts getting tough. There are going to be a few years from 89-98 that my favorite game that I attended might just be any game that we won. Gary Gibbs had been groomed for the head coaching job at OU. He turned down some head coaching job offers to stay at OU. No matter what Gibbs record was at OU he will always be a Sooner and for that I say thanks. As a head coach he left something to be desired. Frank Solich was the Nebraska Gary Gibbs. He was a former player, spent his assistant coaching years at his alma mater, followed a legend and got run out of town. The difference being Frank Solich won a conference title, took his team to the BCS NC game and did win some big games. Gibbs problem was he only beat Texas once; Nebraska once and never beat Colorado. With that said hope springs eternal in Sooner Land as the 1989 season kicks off. We won our first two games then go to Arizona where we lost 6-3. We lost to Texas, Colorado and Nebraska so I guess my favorite game of 1989 would be the OSU game. In 1989 they hadn't started with calling everything ****** yet so it was just the OU/OSU game. It wasn't like this was an exciting game as we led 23-6 at half-time and cruised 37-15. This was the 13th win in a row, over OSU, after losing to the Cowboys in 1976. Like I said from 89-98 is going to have some years that picking a favorite game attended might be tough.
