With another meeting with Oklahoma in the books and the Cyclones once again coming out on the short end, Cyclones fans find themselves in a familiar place. Iowa State still hasn’t won a Big 12 game in 2022, and the Cyclones’ 14-point loss to Oklahoma marked Matt Campbell’s biggest loss to the Sooners since he took the job in Ames.
The Cyclones haven’t fallen to the scrap heap; they’re simply going through a few struggles that come after losing the likes of Brock Purdy and Breece Hall to the NFL.
Still, against Oklahoma, it usually hasn’t mattered how good the Cyclones are or what kind of issues the Sooners have shown during the season.
There have been close losses, not-so-close losses and blowout defeats, but there have been just seven victories for the Cardinal and Gold over Oklahoma and only five wins for the Cyclones over the Sooners since World War II.
Needless to say, watching Oklahoma leave for the SEC probably won’t bother too many Iowa State fans, even though the Cyclones have made things more competitive in recent years. Let’s take a look back at Iowa State’s history against Oklahoma and examine the highs and (mostly) lows of this matchup.
1933-1959: A Lost Quarter Century
The first few years of this matchup started well enough for Iowa State, as the Cyclones picked up two wins in their first four meetings with the Sooners. But then the Depression and World War II happened, and certain schools threw most of their resources after the war into football. Oklahoma was one such school under Bud Wilkinson, and the Sooners quickly built themselves into a national powerhouse on the gridiron.
Iowa State didn’t have that kind of clout. The Cyclones weren’t Kansas State, which virtually ignored football until it was too late to catch up, nor were they on the level of Nebraska.
Against Oklahoma, the talent gap just got wider as the Sooner defense proved a wall that Iowa State could not break through. Not only did Oklahoma go 23-0-1 against Iowa from 1933 to 1956, but the Cyclones never scored more than one touchdown against Oklahoma.
From 1952 to 1956, Iowa State failed to score a point against the Sooners, and from World War II’s end until 1960, the Cyclones scored a grand total of 13 points against Oklahoma in Ames, getting blanked five times on their home field.
1960-1980: Two Brief Breakthroughs
Bud Wilkinson might have created a winning culture at Oklahoma that Iowa State couldn’t figure out how to match for 25 years, but in 1960, things turned. Under Clay Stapleton, the 1960 Cyclones did something no Iowa State team had done before or since, and something no Iowa State team will probably ever do again: they beat Nebraska and Oklahoma in the same season.
The Sooner defense was stingy as ever, but the Cyclones had developed a defense of their own. Eventual NFL players Don Webb and Tom Watkins helped the Cyclones do just enough for a 10-6 win, their first victory over Oklahoma since 1933.
Of course, in typical Cyclone fashion, Iowa State picked the wrong year to break through against the Big Eight giants: 1960 happened to be a year of brilliance for both Missouri and Kansas, leaving Iowa State stuck behind the Tigers, the Jayhawks and Colorado.
Still, it was their first taste of real success against the Sooners in a generation, and they proved it was no fluke the next year by going to Norman and scoring 21 points in a win over Oklahoma.
It was the beginning of the end for two different eras. First, it would be the end of the Bud Wilkinson era, as 1960 and 1961 were his two worst teams in Norman. He’d coach two more seasons after that and get the Sooners back to beating Iowa State and making the top 10 before calling it quits. Second, it would be the end of defense ruling the day between Iowa State and Oklahoma.
Through the 1960s and 1970s, the Cyclones would regularly put up points against the Sooner defense. But they couldn’t stop Oklahoma to save their lives. From 1966 until the 7-7 tie in 1981, Oklahoma scored at least 28 points on 13 occasions.
1981-1995: Blips In the Books
When Oklahoma had a coach who knows what he was doing, things usually didn’t work out so great for Iowa State. That was life from 1973 until 1988 when Barry Switzer and his wishbone offense ran over Iowa State year after year. But in 1981, with Iowa State 3-0 and ranked 20th in the nation, there was a real sense of optimism that the Cyclones could play with the Sooners.
And they could, earning a 7-7 tie in Norman that impressed everyone. That’s the last tie to date in the rivalry, as the NCAA outlawed ties in favor of overtime in the 1990s. Holding an Oklahoma team that had just gone toe-to-toe with top-ranked USC to just seven points was seen as a great achievement and shot the Cyclones to 12th in the polls. It didn’t last.
The bubble popped emphatically the next week at San Diego State, and even though Iowa State got back on track with home wins over Missouri and Colorado, things fell apart when the Cyclones became Kansas State’s only win. What started as a year of hope became a disappointment, as the Cyclones’ tie was one of the few things to celebrate that season.
When Switzer left Oklahoma in 1989 following several scandals, the Cyclones saw an opportunity. The Sooners looked vulnerable, and Jim Walden’s Cyclones came up with a 33-point effort that allowed them to break through for the first time since 1961.
What made this better was that this wasn’t a weak Oklahoma squad like in 1961. These Sooners would still go on to finish third in the Big Eight and rank 17th in the nation. But on this day, Iowa State was the better team.
1996-2015: The Era of Divisions
Few programs were happier to see Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor join the Big Eight in 1996 than Iowa State. That’s because the change to the Big 12 meant that divisions were necessary, and thanks to geography, Iowa State and Oklahoma would now play in separate divisions of the new league. That meant that every two years, the Cyclones wouldn’t have to face the Sooners.
But timing is virtually never on Iowa State’s side, and once again, the calendar didn’t favor the Cyclones in any way. That’s because the year that Oklahoma’s three-year slide into irrelevance under John Blake began was the first year that Iowa State and Oklahoma didn’t play since 1927.
While Iowa State had to contend with ranked Texas A&M and Oklahoma State in 1997, the Sooners languished at the bottom of the league, finishing with just two wins in Big 12 play.
When the Sooners appeared on the schedule again, the Blake era was ending and Bob Stoops was about to begin his reign in Norman. Iowa State was spared having to play the Sooners in their national championship season in 2000, but things were bad enough in a 31-10 loss to the 1999 version.
In 2002, Dan McCarney finally had things going in Ames and got Iowa State to ninth in the nation. But then came the trip to Oklahoma, and the Sooners routed the Cyclones 49-3, sending Iowa State tumbling to a 7-6 finish.
Unfortunately, by that time, Oklahoma was fully back. Over the rest of the divisional era, Iowa State didn’t reach double digits against the Sooners.
2016-present: Campbell and the End
The past seven seasons have been all Iowa State fans ever wanted in this matchup: competitive ballgames, respect from Oklahoma, and occasional victories.
After suffering through four more years of humiliation at the Sooners’ hands with Paul Rhoads as a coach, Iowa State brought in Matt Campbell and changed the course of the matchup. Almost instantly, the Cyclones became competitive with a bright young football mind willing to try anything to win.
In the 2016 meeting, David Montgomery and Joel Lanning’s running ability showed that Iowa State had the pieces in place to compete. A year later, Iowa State broke through, beating the Sooners 38-31 behind Montgomery and yet another new quarterback choice in Kyle Kempt.
Order restored the next season with a 10-point Oklahoma win, but the Cyclones remained competitive. In 2019, they came to a point away from besting the Sooners, and in 2020, they topped Oklahoma by a 37-30 score and ended up facing the Sooners for the Big 12 championship.
Final Thoughts
The annual meeting might be going away after the 2024 campaign, and depending on how the Big 12 schedule shakes out over the next two years, Iowa State might have already played its last home game against Oklahoma for a long time to come.
But the Cyclones are close to even footing with the Sooners these days, and that’s really all they can ask for in this rivalry.
This is no longer one-way traffic; there’s no real disappointment in Ames when the Cyclones come up short against Oklahoma.
And given where things were, that speaks to the culture Campbell has built at Iowa State.
