Assistant Takes Helm: New Coach Sets Team Up for Victory!

The Oklahoma Sooners have a long and storied history of great head coaches over the 131 seasons that the program has played football. From Bennie Owen to Bud Wilkinson, Chuck Fairbanks to Barry Switzer, and Bob Stoops to Lincoln Riley and Brent Venables , OU has had head ball coaches who have been among the most recognizable in the entire sport. Oklahoma has had 23 full-time head coaches in the program's history, and those coaches have hired hundreds of assistants over the years.

Many of those assistants are well-known for their time in Norman, and many of them went on to become head coaches elsewhere. However, there are some major names in the coaching world that some fans may have forgotten spent at least one season coaching at Oklahoma. Though none of these eight coaches were ever OU's head coach, many of them went on to become head coaches for other teams long after their days with the Sooners had ended.

Here are eight coaches who worked at Oklahoma that you may have forgotten spent some time with the Sooners. 1. Jimmy Johnson (1970-1972) The legendary Jimmy Johnson was the head coach at Oklahoma State before his incredibly successful run as Miami's head coach, winning the national title in 1987.

Then, of course, he coached the NFL's Dallas Cowboys to two Super Bowl wins in the 1990s, assembling a dynasty in Big D. Before all of that, Johnson was the defensive line coach at Oklahoma from 1970 to 1972 under Fairbanks. That led him to two stints as a defensive coordinator at Arkansas and Pittsburgh, before he landed the head gig in Stillwater that sent him on a Hall of Fame trajectory.