Column: Why Oklahoma-Michigan Has Always Been Worth Waiting For

Joe Castiglione tried to land the Wolverines for more than a decade before the contract was signed in 2014, but series like this have been the heartbeat of college football for more than a century.

Oklahoma QB John Mateer and Michigan QB Bryce Underwood | IMAGN via USA Today Sports

The best things in life are worth waiting for.

In college football terms, that could mean a decade or more.

It was July 14, 2014 — 11 years ago now — that Joe Castiglione and Dave Brandon made a joint announcement that Oklahoma and Michigan would stage a home-and-home series at a future date.

“Oklahoma and Michigan represent two of the most iconic names in American sport,” Castiglione said at the time. That part certainly hasn’t changed. OU comes into Saturday’s game ranked No. 18, Michigan is No. 15.

But just 11 years ago, no one could have peered into their crystal ball and envisioned what the future would look like. Could they?

We’re still waiting on flying cars, but would you look at that — college football players are now being paid. Also, the College Football Playoff, which debuted later that year, has now expanded from four teams to 12. NIL — doesn’t that literally mean nothing? And what’s this thing called the transfer portal?

Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables. | Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

Yeah, college football hardly looks the same as it was when this contract was signed.

That’s not all.

Brandon left college athletics later that year (a prescient move) and now works for Domino’s Pizza — well, he’s their executive chairman. 

Even the venerated Castiglione has decided to hang up his athletic director fedora.

And yet, in other ways, Oklahoma-Michigan will be Saturday what it has always been: a stirring rendition of a college football intersectional matchup, a non-conference showdown between two of the sport’s elite programs.

“It’s gonna be a really cool matchup,” OU coach Brent Venables said — although we all said the same thing when the contracts were revealed 11 years ago.

Marquee Matchups That Matter

A week after that announcement was made back in 2014, Bob Stoops was in the Omni Hotel in downtown Dallas taking questions alongside quarterback Trevor Knight and four other Sooners. One of the questions Stoops got was about some transfer named Baker Mayfield.

“Baker is really a good player,” Stoops said. “The way he handles himself, the poise, the plays he makes, he really does an excellent job.”

It would be another two years before the Big 12 Conference implemented the Baker Mayfield Rule — allowing walk-ons to transfer without having to sit out a year.

How quaint. Indeed, times have changed.

Stoops was always in lock-step with Castiglione’s scheduling philosophy of one easy game, one moderately challenging game, and one marquee game. In 2011, the Sooners visited Florida State. In 2012, OU hosted Notre Dame. In 2013, the Stoops family staged a reunion in South Bend as Oklahoma beat the Fighting Irish. 

And later that same year, 2014, OU routed Tennessee at Owen Field.

When the announcement was made that OU would be taking on Michigan for the first time in a regular-season series — they met somewhat randomly in the 1975-76 Orange Bowl, and that’s it — it was another crown jewel college football matchup, the kind that should impress a committee of 12 human beings in charge of selecting four playoff teams.

Bob Stoops and the Sooners win it all. | OU Athletics

“I would think so,” Stoops said in 2014. “But I think it would open the eyes of a computer as well, if it had eyes, at the end of the day. Joe has worked hard on our schedule. He has always confided in me, and we've been in agreement on who we were to play in the out-of-conference schedule. And we're proud of that. We just came off the last four years series with Notre Dame and Florida State. Now, like you said, we've got Tennessee and Ohio State coming with Nebraska and Michigan, on and on down the road. 

“And it's been intentional, that, in the BCS formula, and even now with a playoff formula. When all things are equal with records and what not, if someone has played a tougher nonconference schedule, to some degree it would usually benefit you. Otherwise, why play? Otherwise, you might as well just schedule three yawners that no one will pay attention to and not put yourself at risk of losing that game. But in the end we felt, and it's worked well for us, that it prepares you for a tough season but it also, in the formula, helps you have an opportunity to be one of those teams competing for the National Championship.”

Now, of course, the Sooners are in the Southeastern Conference and Michigan has Big Ten games against the likes of Oregon and USC, and strength of schedule remains on the front burner when playoff time comes.

Ghosts of College Football Past

But back to Saturday. It's nationally televised, of course. ESPN's "College GameDay" brings its pregame sideshow (no Lee Corso this time) to the Norman campus. This clash of Crimson and Cream and Maize and Blue has been overdue, literally for a century.

Going into the 2025 season, Michigan ranks No. 1 all-time with 1,012 victories, while Oklahoma came in at No. 6 with 950. Ohio State (978), Alabama (974), Notre Dame (962) and Texas (951) rounded out the top five. 

Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverines win it all | IMAGN via USA Today Sports

Most of Michigan’s best work came early in the previous century — the school “claims” 10 national championships from before 1950, but only two since. Oklahoma didn’t win its first national title until 1950, but the Sooners have won seven in the interim. The Wolverines’ most recent was just two years ago, 2023. Oklahoma’s last title was in 2000.

Still, Saturday’s 6:30 p.m. kickoff represents the magnitude of game that helped put college football on the national radar a hundred years ago. In an era when horse racing, baseball, boxing and little else captured the public attention, the emergence of collegiate icons like Red Grange (Illinois halfback, 1923-25), George Gipp (Notre Dame halfback, 1917-20), Bronko Nagurski (Minnesota fullback, 1927-29), Benny Friedman (Michigan quarterback, 1923-26) and others elevated football from violent curiosity to national pastime.

It would be another three decades before the pro game could catch up to the popularity of college football.

And Oklahoma and Michigan have been at the very heart of what the college game stood for over the last hundred years or more.

“Two incredible programs that represent all the excellence in college football for a long, long time,” Venables said. “Gonna be really exciting from an environment standpoint.”

A Cool Helmet Matchup

Castiglione said earlier this summer during an interview on SiriusXM satellite radio (try explaining that one to Fielding Yost or Bennie Owen) that when he and Brandon officially signed the contracts back in 2014, it ended a pursuit of “probably 10-12 years to finally convince them to play us,” Castiglione said.

“It took me probably 10-12 years to finally convince [Michigan] to play us.”@soonerad Joe Castiglione spoke about the Week 2 matchup for @OU_Football & the program’s philosophy for scheduling!
#BoomerSooner | @RoyPhilpott | @ChrisDoering | #SECThisMorning pic.twitter.com/DfwcsWRIe4

— College Sports on SiriusXM (@SXMCollege) July 3, 2025

“I’ve always worked to try and get these great marquee games in our non-conference schedule, and Oklahoma has a history of doing that.”

Now it’s down to two significant branches of Stoops’ substantial coaching tree. Venables, a Stoops assistant from 1999-2011, and Michigan’s Sherrone Moore, a Stoops offensive lineman from 2006-07, square off Saturday night at Owen Field.

Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore. | Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

“We’ve got a great opportunity this week with Michigan coming into town,” Venables said. 

“I think you have to have matchups like this in college football,” Moore said. “Two blue blood programs going at it on a national stage. It’s ‘College GameDay.’ It’s why you come to Michigan. It’s probably why you go to Oklahoma. Those are the type of games that you want to be a part of and games you remember.

“Obviously, every game is important, but playing against Oklahoma, one of the winningest programs in college football, is huge to us. And to have Michigan and Oklahoma helmets on the field at the same time, what is it, the second time we’ve played? So it’s going to be a cool matchup to be a part of.”

And don’t think for a minute that the enormity of an Oklahoma-Michigan game is lost on today’s players. Many of them might not comprehend the history and tradition and pageantry that’s about to unfurl right at their feet — but many of them will.

“It’s definitely going to be big,” said OU wide receiver Deion Burks, who hails from Michigan but wasn’t offered by the Wolverines, then later played against them at Purdue. “I’m happy that they get to come here this time, and I just can’t wait. I know the atmosphere’s going to be crazy. I know the fans are going to bring it, and I definitely know we’re going to bring it as well.”

“I was thinking about the game (Sunday) night while watching Miami-Notre Dame,” said OU linebacker Kobie McKinzie. “And I was just getting chills thinking about this game and the atmosphere.”