Conference Big Six Conference Head coach Jim Tatum | 1946 record 8–3 (4–1 Big Six) Offensive scheme Split-T | |
Home stadium Memorial Stadium (Capacity: 32,000) | ||
The 1946 Oklahoma Sooners football team represented the University of Oklahoma in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) college football. The team was led by Jim Tatum in his first and only season as head coach. Along with first-year backfield coach Bud Wilkinson, who became the head coach himself the following year, Tatum installed the new split-T offense. An intensive recruiting effort, largely focused at veterans returning from the Second World War, helped Oklahoma to on-field success and eight of the team's new recruits eventually earned first-team All-America honors. The team improved from the previous season to an 8–3 record and a share of the Big Six Conference championship.
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Recruiting
Tatum launched an intensive recruiting drive that included open tryouts that attracted an estimated 600 prospects. He largely rejected the players from the previous season and focused instead on building a new team. The recruiting effort targeted returning servicemen who had been athletes at other colleges before the war, rival universities, and graduating high school seniors. Tatum's recruiting paid dividends, and nine of his players would earn All-American honors at Oklahoma: Plato Andros, Buddy Burris, Jack Mitchell, Jim Owens, John Rapacz, Darrell Royal, George Thomas, Wade Walker, and Stan West. Burris became the first Sooner to receive that honor three times.
Coaching staff
In 1945, head coach Dewey Luster missed part of the season due to illness, and had struggled to recruit quality players during the Second World War when many University of Oklahoma athletes were serving overseas. His Sooners finished the year with a 5–5 record that included a finale loss, 0–47, to Oklahoma A&M (now known as Oklahoma State). At the conclusion of the 1945 season, Luster tendered his resignation.
Athletic director Jap Haskell recommended Jim Tatum to University of Oklahoma president George Cross, and other applicants considered by the Board of Regents included Bear Bryant and Harold Drew. Haskell had served in the U.S. Navy during the war, and Tatum was an assistant coach for the Navy's Iowa Pre-Flight School football team under head coach Don Faurot, the inventor of the split-T formation. Prior to that, Tatum had coached at his own alma mater, North Carolina. Bud Wilkinson, who had been a colleague of Tatum's at Iowa Pre-Flight, was hired as Oklahoma's new backfield coach. Walter Driskill, the former line coach at Colorado and Wyoming, was given that same role at Oklahoma. Tatum and Wilkinson installed the split-T, the innovative new offensive system they had learned under Don Faurot during the war.
Postseason
Individual honors were bestowed upon several Oklahoma players, and at the time, the 1946 team included the most all-conference honorees to date. First-team All-American honors were granted to guards Plato Andros and Buddy Burris, and center John Rapacz. The All-Big Six first team included those three as well as end Warren Giese, back Joe Golding, and tackles Homer Paine and Wade Walker.
After the Gator Bowl, university president Cross learned that Tatum had paid each player $120 ($1,474, adjusted for inflation), despite Cross's order not to do so. He later learned that $60,000 ($736,894 in inflation-adjusted terms) was unaccounted for in the athletic department budget. As a result, athletic director Jap Haskell was fired. Tatum accepted an offer to coach at Maryland, and Cross promoted Bud Wilkinson into the head coaching position.