Oklahoma football: Home field no advantage vs. Kansas State

Oklahoma football has been almost unbeatable the last 23 years when playing at home at the sold-out Palace on the Prairie.

In front of 142 consecutive sellouts at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium since the start of the 1999 season, the Sooners have lost just 11 times. OU has almost as many Big 12 championships over that span of time (10) as home losses.

Three of those 11 Oklahoma home losses since 1999 have been against Kansas State.

Kansas State is 3-5 in its last eight visits to Oklahoma. That is better than any other team in the Big 12 in the past 23 seasons. Conversely, Oklahoma has done extremely well in winning at Kansas State. The Sooners are 7-1 over the same time frame in games played on the road at Kansas State.

What this all adds up to is the road team in this series has prevailed in eight of the last 11 games between the Sooners and Wildcats and the home field has proved to be of little advantage to either team.

Kansas State fourth-year head coach Chris Klieman has also had the Sooners’ number, winning two of three games, one of those coming in Norman, 38-35, in 2020, when fan attendance was seriously restricted because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Klieman is 3-0, though, against the spread in games with the Sooners.

This will be the first meeting between Klieman and Brent Venables, a former Wildcat player and coaching assistant. Venables is 7-0 in games against his alma mater, all while he was an assistant coaching defenses at Oklahoma (2000-2011). Three of those seven wins came in Norman.

OU is a 12.5-point favorite in Saturday’s game with visiting Kansas State. The last three games in the series, all while Klieman has been at K-State, were decided by seven or fewer points. All were under Lincoln Riley, as well.

This is a different Sooner team and Venables’ team. That will make the difference.