"West Virginia. Are You Kidding Me?"

Barry Switzer fed the "monster" Bud Wilkinson created and he overstuffed the monster by going 32-1-1 in his first three seasons in 1973, 74' and 75'.

Back-to-back National Championships in 74' and 75' didn't help matters nor did a 32-game winning streak from 1973 through 1975.

Oh, and by the way, Switzer's Sooners gave former Sooner Legend Darrell Royal's Texas Longhorns the worst loss in Darrell Royal's career in 1973 whipping the Longhorns 52-13.

The fact Switzer did this rout using Royal's Wishbone and using Texas players didn't help matters, frankly speaking either.

And don't forget Switzer's domination over arch rival Nebraska. Beginning with the 1971 "Game of the Century" in Norman, Oklahoma would not lose again to Nebraska until Billy Sims' untimely fumble in Lincoln in the 1978 game.

But don't fret. The Orange Bowl gave Oklahoma an unprecedented rematch in the 1979 bowl game in Miami and to the dumbfoundedness of Tom Osborne and Bob Devaney, Switzer's Sooners beat the Cornhuskers in the rematch 31-24.

So you can see Switzer set the table for very high expectations from a generation of Sooners who grew up listening to Oklahoma football games on the radio from 1973 thru the 1975 season because the Sooners were on probation the entire period!

Skip past an aberration year in 1976 when the Sooners would drop to a 9-2-1 regular season and 1977 at  10-2 and go directly to two straight 11-1 seasons from 1978 and 1979 and back-to-back Orange Bowl victories in 1979 and 1980 and you have the 1980 season in Norman.

I still don't have an explanation for John Elway's performance in Norman that resulted in a 31-14 upset other than the tremendous rainstorm that flooded Owen Field. Another 10-2 season sent the Sooners back to Miami and another win over Florida State.

So the 1981 Oklahoma Sooners football season was filled with promise and high expectations that Barry Switzer would continue his "Sooner Magic" and dominate college football just like he had done the first 8 seasons in Norman.

My First Season in Norman

So this was the backdrop when I enrolled my Sophomore year in college at the University of Oklahoma after spending a year in Kansas chasing my baseball dreams in NAIA Division II "hell" at Baker University.

I soon realized that the opening home game of the year was a very big deal.

Every fraternity and sorority held "Victory Parties" where big keg's were ordered, a live band was booked and hundreds of "Victory T-Shirts" were ordered with funny little sayings about the upcoming opponent who was sure to experience the impending beatdown history showed they would.

And, of course the Wyoming Cowboys obliged with a 37-20 smackdown in the home opener.

However, the uphoria was shortlived.

John Robinson's USC Trojans and running back sensation Marcus Allen handed the Sooners a 28-24 loss in the Los Angeles Coliseum the next Saturday.

The Sooners returned home and were promptly lucky to tie lowly Iowa State 7-7 in Norman. This unheard of setback was followed the next week by a 34-14 beating in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas against hated-rival Texas.

Now the Sooners stood at 1-2-1 headed into a week five matchup with Kansas.

Fortunately, Oklahoma would run off three consecutive home wins and finish the season 7-4-1 with a victory over Houston in the Sun Bowl.

And Then There Was West Virginia

So you can sense the anticipation for Oklahoma football as the 1982 season unfolded coming off the worst season in Barry Switzer's 8 years in Norman.

Much anticipation was in the air as freshman phenom Marcus Dupree from Philadelphia, Mississippi had arrived on campus with much fanfare. So much so, that rumors had it that Switzer was considering scrapping his beloved Wishbone in favor of the I-formation to get the ball into Dupree's hands more often.

And who better than to resurrect the winning tradition than an unheralded West Virginia Mountaineers, who were coming off four back-to-back losing seasons before a 6-6 season in 1980 by rookie head coach Don Nehlen followed by a 9-3 mark in 1981.

Head Coach Nehlen brought an unranked and untested team into Norman as the sacrificial lamb for the traditional opening day beatdown.

Victory parties were scheduled, t-shirts and kegs were ordered and bands were booked for the evening of Saturday, September 11, 1982.

However, a kid named Jeff Hostetler and a band of game-Mountaineers had other ideas.

Hostetler had transfered from Penn State and was ready to unleash his passing prowess on an unsuspecting Sooners.

And Oklahoma did not disappoint in the beginning.

The Sooners got off to a fast start with two quick touchdowns and a 14-0 lead.

Everyone thought another Sooner smackdown was at hand. However, as ESPN "GameDay" host Lee Corso would say, "Not so fast Oklahoma!"

Incredibly, West Virginia would charge back under Hostetler's passing and bring the game to within one point at 14-13 with 1:23 remaining in the first half.

And this is where it started to get weird for Oklahoma fans who were already three beers down across the street at the corner of Lindsey and Jenkins at O'Connell's Irish watering hole.

After a field goal, West Virginia incredibly called for an on-side kick which the Mountaineers recovered. A few short seconds later and a Hostetler touchdown pass and West Virginia had shocked the Sooners and led 20-14 at halftime!

Unbelieveable!

The game would seesaw back and forth until the Sooners tied it up at 27-27 with 3:32 remaining in the game.

Until the unfathomable happened. West Virginia stopped the Sooners cold and scored twice with under two minutes remaining to cap a wild, unthinkable 41-27 upset.

How big of an upset was this?

Consider the fact that not only had Oklahoma had won 9 straight home openers in the Barry Switzer era but that incredibly the Sooners had not lost a home opener in Norman since 1965 to Navy! It was also the first time Oklahoma had started a season 0-1 since 1968 and it was also the most points ever scored against the Sooners in the state of Oklahoma!

Hostetler had a career day completing 17 of 37 passes for 321 yards and 4 touchdowns. The performance and victory would propel the Mountaineers to a 9-3 season and a Gator Bowl berth where they would lose 31-12 to Florida State. The victory would rate #9 on the all-time wins list in Mountaineer history in a 2011 Bleacher Report article.

Interestingly, the 48-28 2008 Fiesta Bowl win over the #3 ranked Sooners also made the Mountaineers top 10 all-time wins list.

Summary

The Saturday night matchup between Oklahoma and West Virginia in Morgantown will be the fifth time the two schools have met on the gridiron and the first-ever for the Sooners in West Virginia.

The series is tied at 2 games apiece although the Mountaineers have won the last two meetings.

Oklahoma is the #1 winningest football program in the modern era and sports 7 national championships, 5 Heisman Trophy winners, 43 Conference Championships and 153 All-Americans.

West Virginia is ranked as the 14th winningest football program in the country without a National Championship.

The Sooners are ranked #12 with an overall 7-2 record and 6-1 Big 12 conference record. The Mountaineers are 5-4 after getting off to a 5-0 record and are entering the game off of 4 consecutive losses in Big 12 play. They are 2-4 in the Big 12 standings.

The Mountaineers are playing for state pride and a bowl qualifying win as this game against Oklahoma is arguably the biggest game of the season and has been circled on the West Virginia fans calendars for some time.

And they are playing for the memory of Don Nehlen and Jeff Hostetler and a repeat performance from 1982 when they shocked the Sooner Nation.

Boomer!