OU football: Key matchup â€" Oct. 27 vs. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
When the Irish come to Norman on Oct. 27, it will be only the 10th time the Sooners and Notre Dame have met on the football field.
The rivalry between the two college football titans transcends the nine meetings in the series, however, which Notre Dame leads eight games to one.
Similar to the NBA’s long-standing Lakers-Celtics rivalry, the Sooners’ and Fighting Irish’s strife is one rooted in history â€" trophies and titles decide the victor, not head-to-head meetings.
And as of 2012, Notre Dame has a slight lead.
Notre Dame ranks third for the most national titles in college football history with 11; Oklahoma is fifth with seven.
Notre Dame is fourth in all-time wins with 853; Oklahoma is seventh with 825. Notre Dame has seven Heisman Trophy winners; Oklahoma has five.
Notre Dame ended OU’s storied 47-game winning streak in 1957. Notre Dame won the last meeting between the teams, 34-30, in South Bend, Ind., in Bob Stoops’ first season at OU in 1999 â€" a game that the Sooners led 30-14 in the second half.
Simply put, there are few teams in college football that possess a more prestigious history than Oklahoma, and Notre Dame is one of them.
But during the last decade, OU has gained significantly on the Irish. The Sooners won a national championship, seven Big 12 titles and appeared in eight BCS games.
In that same 10-year span, the Irish have played in three BCS games â€" losing all three by an average of 24 points â€" and have posted double-digit win totals only twice.
It’s been six seasons since Notre Dame last finished the season in the top 25, and a four-way battle for the starting quarterback job coupled with a question mark for a defense won’t bode well for the Irish in 2012.
With Notre Dame going through four coaches in the past 10 seasons and conference realignment threatening to render the program irrelevant, this season’s matchup provides the Sooners a better opportunity for vengeance than to make any statement of program supremacy.
Though OU has a much better football team on paper, this will still be a must-watch game because of the teams involved â€" but that doesn’t guarantee a classic.
Remember Miami in ’07? Florida State in ’10?
Oklahoma won soundly in both of those matchups â€" 51-13 against Miami, 47-17 against FSU.
So gear up for Notre Dame in ’12; it has all the makings of another Owen Field massacre.
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