Oklahoma Sooners football

The Oklahoma Sooners football program is a college football team that represents the University of Oklahoma (variously "Oklahoma" or "OU"). The team is currently a member of the Big 12 Conference, which is in Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The program began in 1895 and is one of the most successful programs since World War II with the most wins (606) and the highest winning percentage (.762) since 1945. The program has 7 national championships, 45 conference championships, 154 All-Americans (76 consensus), and five Heisman Trophy winners. In addition, the school has had 23 members (five coaches and 18 players) 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, a record that stands to this day. Oklahoma is also the only program that has had four coaches with 100+ wins, including current head coach Bob Stoops. They became the sixth NCAA FBS team to win 850 games when they defeated the Kansas Jayhawks on November 22, 2014. The Sooners play their home games at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma ⁱ/ˌoʊkləˈhoʊmə/ (Cherokee: Asgaya gigageyi / ᎠᏍᎦᏯ ᎩᎦᎨᏱ; or translated ᎣᎦᎳᎰᎹ (òɡàlàhoma), Pawnee: Uukuhuúwa,Cayuga: Gahnawiyoˀgeh) is a state located in the South Central United States. Oklahoma is the 20th most extensive and the 28th most populous of the 50 United States. The state's name is derived from the Choctaw words okla and humma, meaning "red people". It is also known informally by its nickname, The Sooner State, in reference to the non-Native settlers who staked their claims on the choicest pieces of land prior to the official opening date, and the Indian Appropriations Act of 1889, which opened the door for white settlement in America's Indian Territory. The name was settled upon statehood, Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory were merged and Indian was dropped from the name. On November 16, 1907, Oklahoma became the 46th state to enter the union. Its residents are known as Oklahomans, or informally "Okies", and its capital and largest city is Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma Sooners

The University of Oklahoma Sooners (often referred to as Oklahoma or OU) features 19 varsity sports teams. Both men's and women's teams are called the "Sooners", a nickname given to the early participants in the Land Rush of 1889, which initially opened the Unassigned Lands in the future state of Oklahoma to non-native settlement. The university's athletic teams compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)'s Division I, in the Big 12 Conference. The university's current athletic director is Joe Castiglione.

In 2002, the University of Oklahoma was ranked as the third best college sports program in America by Sports Illustrated. When combined with Blake Griffin's John Wooden Award and Sam Bradford's Heisman Trophy, Oklahoma became the second school to have a top winner in both basketball and football in the same year (Gary Beban won the Heisman Trophy and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won the USBWA "Player of the Year" award in 1968 for UCLA).

Varsity sports

The University of Oklahoma was a charter member of the Southwest Athletic Conference (SWC) during its formation in 1914. Five years later, in 1919, OU left the SWC and joined the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association. In 1928, this conference split, and OU remained aligned with the teams that formed the Big Six Conference. Over the next 31 years, more schools were added and the conference underwent several name changes, incrementing the number each time up to the Big Eight Conference where it remained until 1996. Four more universities were added then and the name was changed one more time to its current form: the Big 12 Conference.

Sugar Bowl

The Sugar Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Sugar Bowl has been played annually since January 1, 1935, and celebrated its 75th anniversary on January 2, 2009. The Sugar Bowl, along with the Orange Bowl and Sun Bowl, are the second-oldest bowl games in the country, behind the Rose Bowl. The Sugar Bowl is also a member of the College Football Playoff. Presently, its official title is the Allstate Sugar Bowl after its current sponsor.

The Sugar Bowl has had a longstanding —albeit not exclusive— relationship with the Southeastern Conference (which once had a member based in New Orleans, Tulane University; another Louisiana school, Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, is still in the SEC today). From 1950 to 1995, only once did the Sugar Bowl not feature an SEC team. That relationship has been altered over the past twenty years due to conference realignments and the emergence of a series of coalitions and alliances intending to produce an undisputed national champion in college football, but the ties between the Sugar Bowl and the SEC have persisted and have recently been strengthened.