This stuff is interesting to me.
I find it interesting how much Oklahoma bounces around. They were #1 by a mile in the '50's and #1 again in the '70's but in between they were decidedly mediocre in the '60's.
I also find it interesting that the '70's were REALLY good for pretty much all of the Helmet teams.
It's a little clearer if you take it year by year.
Oklahoma was good out of the blocks post-WWII, and was a team that
could have been named national champs (at 11-0) in 1949.
Starting with the 10-1 1948 team, it had its greatest stretch ever going through the '58 (10-1) season. 107-8-2 over that 11-year stretch. But the Wilkinson magic faded (not just coincidentally as Bud's former player Darrell Royal really got it going in Austin) and Bud finished 7-3, 3-6-1, 5-5, 8-3, 8-2. That went through the '63 season. Bud's successor was long-time assistant poor old Gomer Jones, who went 9-11-1 over two years. The rest of the '60s were "OK," but just that, with the exception of the overachieving '67 team that was 3 missed FGs against Texas in a 9-7 loss from being undefeated and possibly national champs. Then seasons of 7-4 and 6-4 closed out the '60s.
Then, in 1970, in the bye week before the RRS, OU installed Texas' wishbone offense (only emphasizing more speed and less power) and ended up with a 7-4-1 season and momentum. Then they ripped off a great decade, with Barry Switzer taking over from Chuck Fairbanks for the '73 season. 11-1, 11-1, 10-0-1, 11-0, 11-1, 9-2-1, 10-2, 11-1, 11-1, with 2 MNCs in there. (Bama had a lower winning percentage, but won 3 MNCs, over the same period.) The '80s were a down-up-down decade. Subpar recruiting led to a 10-2, 7-4-1, 8-4, 8-4 start. Then, '85 through '87, they went 33-3 with an MNC in '85 and losing to Miami in the '87 MNC game. But then a decline at the end, 9-3, Switzer getting forced out, and closing out with 7-4 under Gary Gibbs in '89. The '90s then made the '60s look like a roaring success story. 8-3, 9-3, 5-4-2, 9-3, 6-6, and Gibbs getting fired. A 5-5-1 season under Howard Smellsofbourbon, and then the worst 3-year span in the program's history under John Blake, 3-8, 4-8, 5-6. Bob Stoops' first year, at 7-5, closed out the decade. 2000 brought 13-0 and an NC, and another nice run--albeit with disappointing performances in NC games--from that point through the 2019 season.
So, up at the end of the '40s, down at the end of the '50s carrying into the mid-1960s, a one-year spike, then back to mediocrity for the rest of the decade, then a great decade in the '70s, a good decade in the '80s, a lousy decade in the '90s, a great start to the '00s, and a good run since then.
Re your last comment, does the fact that most of the Helmet teams did well in the '70s make it a great decade or a top-heavy one?
