Forty-Seven Straight: The Wilkinson Era at Oklahoma

Forty-Seven Straight: The Wilkinson Era at Oklahoma by Keith, Harold. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780806118987.

Football tradition at the University of Oklahoma still runs strong, as does the record of forty-seven consecutive victories that legendary coach Bud Wilkinson and his players set in the 1950s. Approached but never equaled by teams such as Washington, Miami, and Texas, the streak contributed to the acclaim Wilkinson garnered by amassing an impressive three national championships (1950, 1955, and 1956), twelve consecutive conference titles, twenty-three straight wins on opposing fields, Top Ten rankings for eleven successive years, and a thirty-one game winning streak before the unforgettable “forty-seven straight.â Forty-seven Straight details how the record grew, season by season, as told by sixty-one of Wilkinsonâ s players during interviews with Harold Keith, the universityâ s sports publicist who witnessed all 178 football games during the Wilkinson era at OU. The players recall Wilkinsonâ s and his staffâ s style, methods, and strategies while vividly recalling their most dramatic games. The scholastic integrity of Wilkinsonâ s program, which included high academic standards and graduation rates, produced a successful group of career-minded players.