The Undefeated: The Oklahoma Sooners and the Greatest Winning Streak in College Football

I wish every football fan would read this book, but I am willing to bet that a majority of it's readership is full of people like me. Oklahomans who are fans and supporters of our Sooners. I have to admit, I doubt many Texas fans are going to rush out and buy this book, hell, they probably wouldn't read it if there was a free copy in the john, but they might use it for something else. So right off the bat, I have to expose my bias on this book. How could I not love it? So it doesn't mean much for me to say things like, "Everybody will love this book, it speaks to all college football fans." While this book does not hold universal appeal for all people, here is why I think it should. It has an underlying message that is positive and inspiring. A message that can be used by anyone, anywhere, and at anytime. Being born and raised in Oklahoma, I of course became very familiar with the place and the people that live there. From an early age I began to realize that Oklahoma wasn't all that popular of a place. Even most of the kids I grew up with didn't have many good things to say about Oklahoma. They always wanted to be someplace else, and this always bothered me a great deal. In fact, that is one of the biggest problems my home state faces. Oklahoma isn't great enough to hold onto it's own people. I live in Southern California, which might as well be Hell to many OU fans after what the Trojans did to OU in the Orange Bowl. So even I became one of the traitors, in a way. I will always call Oklahoma home, I just live in Hermosa Beach. I'm an Okie, and proud of it. I knew we didn't have any pro sports teams, no major cities that get mentioned in the same breath as "New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, St. Louis, etc." Whenever the big news stations covered the weather, they never gave the weather in Oklahoma, we just kinda got looked over. After all, we are just the funny shaped flat state out in the middle of the country. I very quickly realized that the only time my state popped up on national radar was when the University of Oklahoma's football team was involved. Of course, this became a source of pride for me and countless others. Oklahoma has no place comparing itself to other states in many ways, whether it be pro sports, big business, vacation hotspots, or just simply being a "popular" place to live and work. But when it comes to college football, we stand as proud as anyone, and we know that we deserve the right to do so. What I didn't know as a kid, was that this was the plan all along. Years before I was born, the big wigs at OU and others around the state of Oklahoma wanted to use the University's football program as a source of pride for the state, and this was especially true when my home state was devastated by the depression and the great dust bowl. The Sooners of Oklahoma at one time, won 47 straight football games, and this cemented their legacy as one of the all time great

As a fan of the history of college football I found Dent's book to be a breath of fresh air in a genre that is often peppered with statistics, numbers and facts & figures. Dent goes beyond the numbers to present a living work about the Golden Program of the Golden Era of college football.Many books about the history of a team give just that, a history of the team but overlook the individuals that comprise the whole. Not Dent. He relishes in crawling in the dirt or sailing into the clouds with the players, coaches, supporters and fans who made the story of the OU 47-game winning streak possible. For all the glory and fame, it is well remembered that the Sooners, perhaps the greatest college football team of all-time, was made up of the same stuff as the worst college football team of all-time...a coaching staff of chain-smoking, hard drinking, middle aged coaches and stiff-legged college boys often more interested in getting laid than getting playing time. From desk drawers full of cash, to skirt-chasing, to fist-a-cuffs, to race relations, to sweaty lockerrooms to game day, Dent captures the aura of the greatest winning streak of all-time and the crushing pressure of winning and gut-wrenching fear of losing like few sports writers can.Careful in his details and persistent with his research Dent writes a classic tale of college football while weaving a great yarn of story-telling.Combine this book with Dent's "The Junction Boys", gift wrap them both and you will have the perfect gift for not only the football fan on your gift list but the overall sports fan as well. Hell, my wife actually read and liked the book and she doesn't know squat about football...Great job, Mr. Dent.

As a former student and longtime football season ticket holder at The University of Oklahoma, I have read virtually every book ever written about the football program there. This may well be the best of them all. Although the era chronicled in this story ended before my birth, I now feel like I know intimately many of these characters (and let's face it - many of them WERE characters) who before were merely names and faces I had seen in old photographs.I don't have time to read many books. This was well worth the time.

I LOVED the book. It is a window to an era, one in which my parents were young and attending OU. My dad was a walk-on tackle at the time, and it was great to ask him about the various personalities, and what he remembered about them. For instance, Kurt Burris is a big figure in this. He was known as a really tough guy. My dad was often asked to stay after practice and go "one on one" with him, and became friends with him. Likewise, there is much about Tommy McDonald's persona. My dad recalls an outdoor dance near the student union one evening, when he and some of the other guys saw a little guy wearing jeans and cowboy boots (unheard-of attire at the time) dancing with every girl there. They were asking "who IS that little guy with all that nerve?"---it was McDonald-very much like his persona in the book. Although historical, this is written in the style of a novel. There are some threads which do not neccesarily blend in with the rest of the story. There are some grammatical and factual errors, which I ultimately attibute to the editors. For instance, one passages states that they were going to Manhattan, KS to play the Kansas Jayhawks. Hence, I wonder whether or not there were more errors of which I am unaware. A close friend of the family who know OU SID Harold Keith swears there are many factual errors, such as the events that took place in the TCU game. In spite of this, it is a great read, one that all OU fans should take the time to finish, which, by the way, doesn't take long. I came away from the book feeling that Jimmy Harris, OU qb, was really the hero of the whole story.

Jim Dent's Junction Boys was one of the greatest sports books I ever read, so I couldn't wait for his next one. It's a different kind of story, but this book is wonderful too. Dent knows how to make his characters come alive, from the great coach, Bud Wilkinson, to all those great players, and there were quite a few during the Streak. No, Wilkinson isn't portrayed as a saint here, because he wasn't--he was a human being, and that's how Dent shows him, warts and all. I'd rather read the truth, and if John Herman Bell says "this book is as true as true can be" (that's what he told the Daily Oklahoman), that's good enough for me. The best part of the book is getting to know all those great players, and reading about all those great games they played--and there were some great games. Also, getting behind the scenes is really cool, to see how the players and the coaches prepared (or didn't). There are a lot of funny stories, too. All in all, a great follow-up to the great Junction Boys.