The 2000 Sooners and 19 other unlikely champions

3 weeks ago 4

Bill ConnellyOct 8, 2025, 07:00 AM ET
Close

Twenty-five years ago, heading into the Red River Rivalry crippled successful 2000, it was hard to cognize what to marque of Oklahoma. The Sooners were 4-0 for the archetypal clip successful 7 years, which was a motion that second-year caput manager Bob Stoops was steering the Sooners retired of their worst funk since the 1930s. They had gone conscionable 44-45-3 implicit the erstwhile 8 seasons, handcuffed archetypal by NCAA sanctions and past by 2 mediocre caput coaching hires (the ill-fitting Howard Schnellenberger, past the overwhelmed John Blake). But Stoops had led them to a decent 7-5 run successful 1999, and with backmost Josh Heupel slinging the shot astir much than 35 times per crippled -- a immense mean for some assemblage shot successful 2000 and for a erstwhile enactment shot capitol similar OU -- the Sooners had a amusive violative identity. They were coagulated and absorbing again, but however bully were they, really?

There weren't immoderate lingering doubts aft the Red River crippled against Texas. Quentin Griffin scored six times successful 23 carries, and Rocky Calmus' 41-yard prime six made it 35-0 Sooners with 11:30 near successful the 2nd quarter. A three-point underdog heading in, OU cruised, 63-14, and moved up to eighth successful the polls, their champion ranking successful 9 years. Two games aboriginal -- a 41-31 triumph astatine No. 2 Kansas State and a 31-14 location triumph implicit top-ranked Nebraska -- they were No. 1, wherever they'd enactment for the remainder of the season. Another triumph implicit Kansas State successful the Big 12 Championship qualified them for the BCS rubric game, an eventual 13-2 Orange Bowl triumph implicit Florida State. In conscionable 2 seasons (and with nary assistance from the transportation portal), Stoops had not lone stopped OU's descent but brought the Sooners each the mode backmost to prominence.

Most of assemblage football's past has produced reasonably predictable results astatine the top. That's surely existent of the existent era: Of the past 11 nationalist champions, lone 1 was ranked extracurricular the preseason AP apical five: LSU, which won the rubric successful 2019 aft starting retired mode down successful sixth. Auburn's 2010 rubric is the lone 1 successful the past 22 years to travel from a squad that began the play ranked little than 11th. Of course, lest you deliberation erstwhile eras were welcoming to underdog runs, it's important to enactment that since the AP preseason canvass began 75 years ago, lone six eventual champions began the play unranked, and lone 12 started extracurricular the apical 15.

OU's 2000 tally ranks beauteous precocious connected the database of unexpected titles, then. But who tin apical the Sooners? Looking astatine the past 75 years -- and sticking to the 86 teams that finished No. 1 successful either the AP oregon UPI/coaches' polls (sorry, 2017 UCF) -- present are the 20 astir astonishing and improbable rubric runs. For each team, I'll database their preseason AP rank, their mean SP+ ranking implicit the erstwhile 5 years and, arsenic a mode of looking astatine however unexpected their rubric propulsion remained arsenic the twelvemonth unfolded, the fig of weeks they spent astatine No. 1 successful the AP canvass earlier the last rankings.

20. 1992 Alabama Crimson Tide

5-year mean SP+ ranking: 17.6

Preseason AP rank: 9

Weeks astatine No. 1 (AP): 0

In the 9 seasons since Bear Bryant's retirement, Alabama had remained mostly solid, with 5 top-15 finishes and lone 1 losing season, but neither Ray Perkins nor Bill Curry could flight Bryant's shadow. Gene Stalling's Crimson Tide went 11-1 successful 1991 and began 1992 successful the apical 10, but immoderate adjacent wins -- and the spectre of a dominant, astir wire-to-wire Miami -- kept the hype tamped down. Still, Bama outlasted Florida successful the archetypal SEC Championship to gain a changeable astatine Miami successful the Sugar Bowl, and they shocked the satellite with a ascendant 34-13 win.