Alriy, deep dive into OU chicanery part 1.
First, a couple of things to understand:
1. One of the great things about college football is also the source of its greatest misunderstandings. There is incredible diversity in colleges- how they are organized, how they are governed, their culture, their values. Pro sports are cookie cutter leagues, every organization functionally the same. Not so in college football, although sports media keeps taking the lazy path and writing as if it were. OU has gotten a lot of mileage out of these assumptions, shielding it from proper recognition of its misdeeds.
2. Demographic trends. The simplest way to describe this is to use congressional delegation size through the years. The HoR has 435 members, reapportioned every ten years with the census. As states grow or shrink in populations, the number of representatives dies the same. Here are the numbers for three states:
Texas - Oklahoma - Nebraska
1920: 18 - 8 - 6
1940: 21 - 9 - 5
1960: 22 - 6 - 4
1980: 24 - 6 - 3
2000: 30 - 6 - 3
2020: 36 - 5 - 3
There you have it- Oklahoma is on the demographic path that doomed Nebraska. It’s only path to national success is getting players out of state, and it has known this for eighty years.
In 1946, OU had a new president, George Cross, who was a football fan. He and their board had a plan to emphasize football success to rally the state from its chronic and growing sense of inferiority. They knew there were a bunch of servicemen with football ability coming to colleges, and they decided to build a program on this swell of talent. They hired Jim Tatum, perhaps more impressed with his chief assistant, Bud Wilkinson. Wilkinson, of course, got the job the next year, when Tatum left, and built a monster.
OU formed a booster group, the Touchdown Club, which funded extra benefits for recruits and players. All of this was actually legal in the late ‘40s (or at least not illegal). Texas was doing the same (DX Bible instituted “The Bible Plan”, where alumni were assigned different parts of the state).
OU became a national power- based on Wilkinson’s coaching at an elite level of organization, and recruiting Texas. In the early ‘59s, the NCAA came up with rules on scholarships, recruiting and benefits, and was given enforcement power.
OU was turned in twice in the’50s, by rival Big 6 programs. The Sooners denied everything, and Cross was fine with that. He figured the program got itself into trouble, and it was up to the program to get itself out. He felt no need to enforce propriety or honesty.
The NcAA found plenty of guys recruited by OU at other programs, willing to talk, and penalized the Sooners both times.
It didn’t really slow the Sooners down much. They had a huge advantage in the weakness of their schedules during the Wilkinson years. Many years, they would be the only Big 6 team to finish ranked. They had superior talent and only a couple of games to get up for.
One more thing- OU desegregated in 1957 and desegregated a few years later. They deserve credit for the former (which they happily claim) and not for the latter.
Royal started kicking their ass and no one was too sad when Wilkinson decided to step aside and try politics in 1964.