Sooner Legends - Coaches | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A page we built about Bennie Owen figured I would share it here with some Sooners fans that would appreciate it. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bennie Owen is the grandfather of both the OU football and basketball programs and the football field is still named after him to this day, though the stadium is not. Owen was the first of four OU football coaches to win 100 games, no other college program has more than three coaches that have reached that mark. Owen has been credited with developing the three point stance though few know if that is actually true or a crude joke based on the fact that he coached with only one arm for most of his career after losing his right arm in a hunting accident in his third season as the head football coach at OU, 1908. He also took over as basketball coach that same year and successfully coached both football and basketball until 1921 and remained as the football coach until 1926. thus 13 and 21 seasons, respectively. As, a basketball coach he went 113 and 49 posting two undefeated seasons. Owen met football greatness early, first playing for Fielding Yost at Kansas in 1899 and then joining Yost's coaching staff in Michigan and being part of Yost's point-a-minute squads in 1901 and 1902 where Michigan scored over 600 points in both seasons. He countered OU's lack of budget by having week-long road trips where his teams would play three games in the same week.
His overall record with OU was 122-54-16. Giving him a winning percentage .677. His teams scored 5031 points and only allowed 1470. Owen is a big reason why OU is the highest scoring football program of all time and installed the offensive mentality that has been a staple of OU athletics since his departure. He was the first coach to bring the forward pass to the south-west portion of the country. Of the big four OU coaches, Owen is the only one to not win a national championship though he had three undefeated season in 1915, 1918 and 1920. but do to regional Bias teams from the South, especially the Southwest were seldom considered for a NC which was much more based on polls then than even now. Bennie Owen is the father of OU atheletics and is the foundation for the great programs is both sports. Bennie Owen was a charter member of the College Football Hall of fame when it opened in 1951. |