Houston and Oklahoma State Share a Surprising Football History
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The No. 22 Houston Cougars host the No. 18 Oklahoma State Cowboys on Saturday in what should be a classic Big 12 game.
Both teams know how critical another loss could be and how big of a win this game would be. Interestingly, the series has a frankly interesting history.
The History of Houston against Oklahoma State
Oklahoma State College Football predates the Cougars. In 1941, Johnny Goyen, the sports editor for The Cougar of Houston University, and Jack Valenti, president of the sophomore class, began a petition for an official intercollegiate football team at Houston.
It took a while for the team to become a reality, but in 1946, after Houston's athletic director hired successful high school coach Jewell Wallace, Houston had a football team. Tryouts were held, and eventually a team full of WWII veterans was crushed by the then-renowned Rice Owls, a great Southwest Conference football program.
The Cougars joined their first conference, the Gulf Coast Conference, in the late 1940s, before moving to the Missouri Valley Conference in the 1950s, where they faced teams like the Cowboys, Arkansas Razorbacks, and others. Houston and Oklahoma State played each other annually from 1951 to 1961, and Houston won five of the 10 games, with one ending in a tie.
The Cougars left the conference and later joined the Southwest Conference in 1976, while the Cowboys joined the Big Eight Conference a bit later, ending the annual rivalry. The teams met only four times in the 1960s, with the Cowboys winning three of those four.
In the 70s, potentially the best years of Cougar football, the teams didn't play. But under Bill Yeoman, the Cougars won four Southwest Conference titles. They scored over 100 points in a game (still the most recent by an FBS team) and won the Cotton Bowl against the Maryland Terrapins in 1976 and the Tom Osborne-led Nebraska Cornhuskers in 1979.
Unfortunately, after memorable seasons when Houston was a premier program in the nation, the SWC fell apart after 1995, leaving Houston, TCU, SMU, and Rice behind; ultimately, those teams wouldn't rejoin major college football conferences until decades later. Rice remains in the group of six today, which is quite sad considering how good the team used to be.
This resulted in only three matches between the Cowboys and Cougars in 1988 and 2009, with Houston winning two.
The Most Interesting Matches Between the Two Teams
September 12th, 1987
The Cowboys won 35-0 as Thurman Thomas and Barry Sanders began a great 1987 season, in which Oklahoma State finished 10-2 and ranked No. 11. Unfortunately, the Cowboys were blown out of the water by No. 2 Nebraska 35-0 and by the No. 1 Oklahoma Sooners 29-10. But this win showed the talent of one of the greatest Cowboys teams ever.
September 23rd, 2006
The Cougars defeated the 3-0 Cowboys, 34-25, establishing themselves as one of the 2000s' best offenses. Houston totaled over 500 yards, showcasing just some of the explosive offenses the Cougars would field.
September 12th, 2009
The Houston Cougars won this game 45-35 in a classic shootout and huge upset. Case Keenum and the Cougars stunned the No. 5 Cowboys, with Keenum passing for 366 yards and three touchdowns. This game exposed the Cowboys' weaknesses as a team, and the Cowboys ended the season 9-4 with some ugly losses, including this one. Houston finished 10-4, as Keenum had an amazing season.
The Renewal of the Rivalry and the Biggest Match Ever
TCU eventually joined the Big 12 after major shakeups in the early 2010s, when iconic football programs like Nebraska, the Missouri Tigers, and Colorado Buffaloes left the conference, and TCU and others joined.
SMU joined the ACC just a few seasons ago when Houston joined the Big 12. In 2023, Houston lost 43-30 to the No. 23 Cowboys in their inaugural conference season. Last season, the Cougars got their revenge, winning 39-17 against the Cowboys.
Now, the Cowboys visit the Cougars, 4-1, with Houston being 5-1. Quite frankly, this matchup is the most important yet. Unfortunately, the Cowboys' history hasn't been great, given how much Nebraska, Oklahoma, and even Texas dominated the Big 12 Conference. In other words, the two teams have had few marquee matchups.
And of course, because Houston was in a weak conference for a while, no games between the two teams had that kind of big-game implication. This next game is huge for the conference and for the College Football Playoff. You can probably guess that another Cowboys loss hurts any CFP hopes.
With a loss to the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes (24-10) and their signature win over the Oregon Ducks looking worse, a 10-2 team arguably doesn't deserve a CFP spot. For Houston, another Big 12 loss probably ends any conference hopes and, thus, probably ends CFP hopes, barring a great end to the season.
Simply put, looking back on the history of football teams, conferences, and rivalries is fascinating. Seeing how these teams connected in the past and how big the game is shows how far these programs have come. This also shows the Cougars are on the rise after many years in which Houston struggled to gain national relevance.
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Born in Utah, raised in Nebraska, and now living in the Northeast, Tyler Crum is a lifelong sports fan with a passion for college football, college basketball, Major League Baseball, and hockey. He attends the University of New Hampshire, where he is majoring in history. His work has appeared with Last Word on Sports, Utah on Ice, and Sports Illustrated. When he is not writing or watching sports, Tyler can usually be found reading a book on military history.
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