Why Oklahoma is Overdue to Win a National Championship in Men's Sports

OMAHA, NE — Skip Johnson’s baseball team can do something Monday night that hasn’t been done by any men’s program at Oklahoma in eight years.

If the Sooners defeat North Carolina in the final game of the Championship Series of the College World Series (6 p.m., ESPN), they will hoist the first national title trophy won by an OU men’s team since 2018.

Joe Castiglione’s athletic department added stacks of shiny hardware to the trophy case during his tenure, but outside of a remarkable sustained run of nine titles by gymnastics and one title from golf, OU men haven’t won a team national championship since the 2000 football season.

The last one before that came 22 years ago, in 1994, when Larry Cochell led the Sooners to the College World Series crown in 1994.

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The last men’s team national championship at Oklahoma came in 2018, when Mark Williams and men’s gymnastics won their fourth title in a row.

Williams’ teams also won the crown in 2008, 2006, 2005, 2003 and 2002, giving him nine national championships as head coach this century.

Yul Muldauer, Hunter Justus, Levi Anderson, Gage Dyer, Genki Suzuki, Gage Dyer and Tanner Justus powered the Sooner lineup to the crown in Chicago that 2018 season.

Since that season, Williams and the Sooners have finished national runner-up four times (2019, 2021, 2022 and 2026).

Oklahoma’s only other NCAA championship by an OU men’s team since 2000 happened in 2017, when Ryan Hybl led the Sooner golf team to the crown.

They beat defending champion Oregon in the match play finals at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, IL. The Sooners knocked off Baylor 3-2 and host Illinois 3.5-1.5 in the semifinals before dropping the Ducks 3.5-1.5.

In stroke play team standings, OU finished second, 12 strokes behind Vanderbilt. The Sooners entered stroke play as the No. 13 seed but then got hot in stroke play and then dominated match play.

Senior Max McGreevy and sophomores Blaine Hale and Brad Dalke powered the Sooners with match wins in the finals.

Between football, basketball, cross country, track and field, tennis and wrestling, the only other team national championship this century came in 2000, when Bob Stoops rejuvenated the football team in his second season by stunning the nation with the program’s seventh national championship.

That OU team started the season ranked No. 19, but by the end of October, following upset victories over No. 11 Texas, No. 2 Kansas State and No. 1 Nebraska, took over the No. 1 spot in the polls and never relented.

Senior quarterback Josh Heupel and sophomore running back Quentin Griffin led the offense, and linebackers Rocky Calmus and Torrance Marshall and defensive backs Roy Williams, Brandon Everage, Derrick Strait and safety/punt return ace J.T. Thatcher led the defense.

They were the first OU team to finish a season undefeated since 1974 and the first ever to achieve a 13-0 record, culminating an historic season by shutting down No. 2 Florida State’s high-flying offense 13-2 in the BCS National Championship.

Stoops’ teams finished as national runner-up in 2003, 2004 and 2008.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma’s women’s programs — specifically softball and gymnastics — have piled up 16 national championships since 2000, eight for Patty Gasso and eight for K.J. Kindler (all since (2014).

Oklahoma ranks 13th among all NCAA Division I schools in total team national championships with 39. That’s just behind No. 12 Michigan (41) and No. 11 Cal (43). A win over the Tar Heels on Monday night would lift OU one step closer to the NCAA's all-time top 10.

The top 10 schools in the team national championship tally: 10, Florida (44), 9, LSU (48), 8, North Carolina (52), 7, Arkansas (54), 6, Oklahoma State (55), 5, Penn State (57), 4, Texas (62), 3, USC (116), 2, UCLA (127) and 1, Stanford (140).

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