25-05-2025
2000 Oklahoma Sooners team among the best in the 21st century, per The Athletic
2000 Oklahoma Sooners team among the best in the 21st century, per The Athletic
There have been so many great college football teams over the first 25 years of the 21st century. Undoubtedly, the Oklahoma Sooners would have to be represented on a list ranking the 25 best single-season teams since 2000. The Athletic's Stewart Mandel took on that very task this week.
While some of the great OU teams from years like 2003, 2004, 2008 and 2017 were omitted from Mandel's list, the most recent OU team to win a national title made the Top 25. That is, of course, the 2000 team that went undefeated and won it all in Bob Stoops' second year at the helm. Mandel placed the '00 Sooners at No. 20 in his rankings. He compared Oklahoma to the 2010 Auburn team that also went unbeaten and won the national title.
"Like 2010 Auburn, this team did not fit the mold of a national champion, producing just six draft picks, though one was future Pro Bowl safety Roy Williams," Mandel said. "But credit where credit's due: After starting ranked 19th, Bob Stoops' Sooners beat three consecutive top-10 foes in October, including then-No. 1 Nebraska. A banged-up Josh Heupel, the Heisman runner-up, struggled down the stretch, but the defense shut out an explosive Florida State offense led by Heisman winner Chris Weinke in the Orange Bowl."
That team was led by Heupel and a deep talented group of weapons on the offensive side of the ball, opposite at dominant Mike Stoops-Brent Venables defense. Williams, Torrance Marshall, Rocky Calmus and J.T Thatcher helped Oklahoma take down Kansas State (twice), Texas and Nebraska. Marshall's trash talk to Weinke ahead of OU's 13-2 victory embodied the attitude that Sooner team played with, especially on defense.
The Florida State team that the Sooners took down in the national title game did not make Mandel's list, but the 2000 Miami Hurricanes, who didn't even make the title game, ranked all the way up at No. 10. That team did take down FSU in the regular season, but missed the national championship game due to a loss early in the year against Washington. One has to wonder how a team that wasn't even good enough to play for a national championship and lost a game is ten spots better than the consensus, undefeated national champ from the same season.
That 2000 Oklahoma team was an unexpected juggernaut that put the Sooners back on the map with the loudest statement possible. After a decade of depression between the tenures of Barry Switzer and Bob Stoops, OU returned to the pinnacle of the sport. Now, with Brent Venables at the controls, OU hopes they're building a program that can replicate that kind of championship-winning success.
