Why Oklahoma QB Baker Mayfield Called Sooners' Baseball Natty 'Big-Time'

NORMAN — Even on the East Coast, Baker Mayfield could feel Sooner Magic in the air as OU made its run in the NCAA Baseball Tournament.

Oklahoma, of course, capped off its magical month with a 13-2 win over No. 5 North Carolina in Game 3 of the College World Series Finals on Monday to secure its third national championship in program history.

Mayfield’s wife, Emily, is from Nebraska. The couple tried to make it out to Omaha for the CWS, but they were unable to make it work with their schedules.

Still, watching from afar was special for Mayfield, as he has known OU coach Skip Johnson for almost his entire life.

“Small world, I’ve known Skip Johnson since I was 10 or 11,” Mayfield said. “I grew up playing baseball with his son when I was a kid.”

Mayfield will forever be an Oklahoma supporter.

He enrolled at OU in 2014 after spending the 2013 season on Texas Tech’s roster as a walk-on. Mayfield sat out of the 2014 season before serving as the Sooners’ starting quarterback for each of the next three seasons. Mayfield led Oklahoma to a 33-6 record as its starter, and he won the Heisman Trophy in 2017.

Rooting for Oklahoma is never a tough ask for the Sooner legend. But given his personal connection to Johnson, it made him even more invested as the baseball team defied the odds time and time again.

“It’s easy to support OU, obviously, but even easier to support Skip,” Mayfield said. “That was big-time.”

Oklahoma lost four series in a row to end its regular season, and the Sooners lost their only game in the SEC Tournament. OU was placed in the Atlanta Regional with No. 2 Georgia Tech, but the Sooners managed to win two games against the Yellow Jackets to advance to the Super Regional round.

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In Supers, the unseeded Sooners battled No. 15 Kansas. Oklahoma swept the Jayhawks, outscoring them 21-3 in two games to move on to Omaha.

The baseball team’s performance in Lawrence mimicked the success Mayfield used to have against the Jayhawks — OU outscored Kansas 159-13 in three starts the quarterback made against it.

“A little bit (similar),” Mayfield said. “We came out on the strong side… it’s pretty similar.”

Mayfield will forever be seen as a legend in Norman, as well as Oklahoma as a whole. But while he got close to a national championship in 2017 — his final year of college football — he never won one.

Winning a national title is the hardest thing a team can do in sports. And the baseball team’s road to the championship was particularly strenuous.

In addition to their wins against Georgia Tech and Kansas, the Sooners took down No. 3 Georgia and No. 7 Alabama to advance to battle UNC in the CWS Finals.

The Heisman-winning quarterback said that OU’s 2026 baseball team is one that fans should remember for decades to come.

“The team got hot when it mattered,” Mayfield said. “Congrats to those guys.”

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