Today in College Football History: No. 1 USC vs. No. 2 Oklahoma

Regular season 1 vs. 2 match-ups are extremely rare. In fact, it’s happened only 24 times. Fifteen of the 24 are out-of-conference, but just nine of those 15 are since the 1940s. One such instance was on Sept. 26, 1981, in Los Angeles. Second ranked Oklahoma came into the Memorial Coliseum for a date with top ranked USC Trojans in a quintessential battle of Many vs. One.

See, Barry Switzer’s Sooners employed an offense predicated on spreading the wealth. OU had multiple means by which to beat an opponent: running backs Buster Rhymes, Alvin Ross and Stanley Wilson rushed for over 1600 yards combined while quarterback Darrell Shepard was the engine driving it all. He ran the option to the tune of nearly 800 yards and 13 touchdowns.

All told, those Sooner rushers were good for around 2400 yards. That same season, USC’s Marcus Allen rushed for the same total. By himself. Allen took on a workload that will likely never be seen again in college football, carrying the ball 403 times. There are teams that literally don’t rush that often in a season now.

Allen finished the ’81 campaign the Heisman Trophy winner thanks to that ridiculous output of yards, as well as for scoring 22 touchdowns. Two-hundred and three of Allen’s yards came against OU, and one of his touchdowns. He crossed the goal line late in the game to cut into what had been a day-long Sooner lead, slashing a 24-14 advantage to 24-21.

He helped USC into Sooner territory on the game’s final drive, but it wasn’t the Heisman winner who pushed the Trojans over the top.

John Mazur passed to Fred Cornwall with just a few ticks left on the clock, giving USC its only the lead of the game. What an opportune time.