Nebraska–Oklahoma football rivalry

Nebraska–Oklahoma football rivalry
SportFootball
First meetingNovember 23, 1912
Nebraska 13, Oklahoma 9
Latest meetingSeptember 17, 2022
Oklahoma 49, Nebraska 14
Next meetingSeptember 15, 2029
Statistics
Meetings total88
All-time seriesOklahoma leads, 47–38–3
Largest victoryNebraska, 69–7 (1997)
Longest win streakOklahoma, 16 (1943–1958)
Current win streakOklahoma, 3 (2010–present)
230km
143miles
Oklahoma
Nebraska
Locations of Nebraska and Oklahoma

The Nebraska–Oklahoma football rivalry is an American college football rivalry between the Nebraska Cornhuskers and Oklahoma Sooners. The two programs are among the most storied in the sport's history, and their traditional Thanksgiving-weekend meeting often carried conference and national championship implications. They met eighteen times with both ranked in the national top ten, including two AP poll and two BCS No. 1 vs No. 2 games.

The teams were conference opponents as early as 1921, but the annual meeting did not immediately gain prominence – Nebraska's domination of the MVIAA prior to World War II was followed by sixteen consecutive Oklahoma conference championships from 1946 to 1959. The rivalry became nationally significant as Bob Devaney built NU into a power in the 1960s, culminating in a 1971 meeting (the "Game of the Century") that is often considered the best game in college football history. Tom Osborne and Barry Switzer, both promoted to head coach in 1973, entrenched the series as one of the sport's great rivalries. Switzer won thirteen of eighteen meetings with Osborne, coining the term "Sooner Magic" to describe OU's often uncanny success in these games. Nebraska controlled the series in the decade following Switzer's 1988 resignation.

The annual series ended in 1996 when the Big Eight merged with the Southwest to form the Big 12 Conference, with Nebraska and Oklahoma in separate divisions. The teams played several high-profile games in the Big 12, including the first two No. 1 vs. No. 2 games in BCS history, but have met infrequently since Nebraska joined the Big Ten in 2011.