Oklahoma Threads: The Sooners Head to Uncharted Territory in the Magnolia State

The University of Oklahoma and Mississippi State may have been playing on two different planets during their 131 years of playing football.

As an institution, MSU has 12 years on OU, opening in 1878 as The Agricultural and Mechanical College of the State of Mississippi (Mississippi A&M). It dropped the name in 1932 and adopted Mississippi State — well after the 21-year head coach Bennie Owen called it a career in 1926.

OU has very little in the way of a relationship with the state of Mississippi. Only 16 players have traveled from the Magnolia State to play collegiate ball in the Sooner State for Oklahoma. The Sooners only recently made their first trip to Mississippi to play a road game — a 26-14 loss in Oxford to Ole Miss in 2024.

Other than the Rebels, who OU has dropped all three games against dating back to the 1999 Independence Bowl, Mississippi remains uncharted territory for the proud football program.

In fact, much of the SEC — at least the traditional SEC schools, not including Arkansas who joined the conference in 1992 — is not familiar with seeing the Crimson and Cream travel to their campuses.

Oklahoma's first road trip to an SEC school was Vanderbilt in 1976. The next time was a 1982 matchup in Lexington against Kentucky. It wouldn't be until Jason White's Heisman Trophy-winning year in 2003 that the Sooners traveled to another SEC school for a true road game when they played Alabama.

While Saturday's matchup between Oklahoma and Mississippi State won't attract national attention, at least for the proud program of the Sooners, they can cross another road trip off their list.

Perhaps the most glaring connecting thread between Mississippi and OU football is Marcus Dupree.

Dubbed The Best That Never Was in the popular 2010 ESPN 30 for 30 documentary of the same name, Dupree was the subject of an early 1980s recruiting circus that inspired a 1992 book, "The Courting of Marcus Dupree."

Barry Switzer went toe-to-toe with just about every major program, local Mississippi program and everyone in between for the services of Dupree. Oklahoma's 1970s dynasty had given way to a disappointing 1981 outing — making Dupree a top priority for the program wanting to return to the ranks of the elite.

OU won out, keeping Dupree from going to Austin or College Station. During Dupree's freshman season in 1982, the phenom started slowly but captured the imagination of Sooner fans everywhere when he helped defeat the Longhorns in the Cotton Bowl with a 63-yard score.

He finished with 1,144 yards on 146 carries and 12 scores. His OU career was short-lived, as he would quit the team after the 1983 Texas game and transfer to Southern Miss.

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