How 1903 Defined Oklahoma Sooner Football

By the time Mark McMahon's football team took the field in the fall of 1903 the University's fire was long forgotten and students were living up the new, modern feel of the school. The gridiron boys were living what seemed to be a life of luxury as they now had access to the new gymnasium, which acted as their locker room. Although, a new locker room with modern amenities is nearly useless when you play just two of twelve games at home, as the Rough Riders did in 1903.

The longest schedule in school history was also the most ambitious, to add to the road schedule, Oklahoma had scheduled the likes of Texas (twice), Arkansas, Kingfisher, Kansas, the Texas Aggies, a professional Town Team from Lawton, and powerful Bethany College. Once again, the Rough Riders were starting over when it came to star power on the field. Frank McCoy had gone to further his education, as had most of the other talented players, adding to the task ahead of the University boys.

Oklahoma opened the season against the Chilocco Indians and blew them off the field in route to a 36-5 victory. Chester Reeds scored four touchdowns for the young ball club that was just trying to find its way. The next week the boys ran into another powerful Kingfisher team and again played to a tie, this time 0-0. It was the first shutout of OU in ten games and seemed to set the tone for a season full of peaks and valleys. Reports of the game in the press were similar to the reports one would hear of a fight involving young boys, who won just depended on who you talked to. Harold Keith explained it in Oklahoma Kickoff:

The contest provided an amusing manifestation of journalistic partisanship of that day. The Norman People's Voice asserted "From the first Kingfisher seemed afraid so insisted on playing their coach, then too it so happened that both the umpire and referee were Kingfisher men. As a result of all this our boys only managed to make the game a tie although they played nearly all the time in Kingfisher's field."

But the Kingfisher Free-Press trumpeted: "It was a great victory that the Kingfisher College football boys won last Friday when they held the university boys from Norman down to an even game....The game was a fast one from the start and the Norman boys were simply outclassed....Three-fourths the playing was done on Norman's territory."

Further proof that there are two sides to every story and that no one wins when the game ends in a tie, not even the newspapers. If those same newspapers wrote about the next game for Oklahoma it would hardly resemble what makes college football fans so excited today. If the headlines read that it was time for the annual "Rough Rider- Ranger" battle you would have very little clue that the game in reference was Oklahoma-Texas.

This would be the first time in the still-growing series that OU would not lose to Texas. This time the Rough Riders battled the Rangers and trailed just 6-0 with less than a minute remaining. OU punted and sent the message to clobber the return man as soon as possible, it worked. The Ranger return man fumbled and Oklahoma recovered inside the five yard line. Moments later the University would cross the goal line with just 37 seconds showing on the clock. After connecting on the point after, the game was tied just as it would end, 6-6.

Make no mistake about it, this was a tie that had a winner and a loser. Texas was used to dominating the series and Oklahoma was used to being dominated, but not on this day. Students partied in the streets of Norman for the first time in celebration of the tie, ready to treat the players as superstars, after receiving word of the tie via telegraph.

Two days later Oklahoma was in Bryan, Texas preparing to play the Texas Aggies in hope of salvaging a game from the Texas road trip. The Rough Riders did just that as they again pulled out some late-game heroics. Using the popular "tackle-back" play, where two tackles flanked the backfield much like the "flexbone" look of the 1980s, OU plunged over the goal-line with 57 seconds remaining in the contest. Oklahoma pulled out the 6-0 win and looked forward to returning to home territory to celebrate their victories.

Oklahoma played more of their so-called home games during this time in Oklahoma City at Colcord Park, exactly where they would play Fairmont College the next week. Fairmont would later become Wichita State, but on this day that wouldn't matter. Oklahoma's Chester Reeds set up Fairmont's only score by fumbling on the goal line, but made up for it just before the halftime whistle. Reeds darted through the line, broke a few tackles, threw a few more stiff-arms, and sprinted the rest of the way to finish 75 yards later in the end zone for a touchdown.

The Rough Riders won their second straight game, both by six points, and seemed to be hitting stride. McMahon's boys didn't know of the struggles that waited for them in the coming weeks, but they were prepared to handle adversity. Not as much do to the workings of their coach as to the workings of their President. David Ross Boyd showed how to handle adversity and the football team was just getting ready to find their version on the field.