Oklahoma has seven Heisman Trophy winners, tied with Ohio State and Notre Dame for second most behind USC, and four of the seven were quarterbacks under Bob Stoops and Lincoln Riley. Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray won in consecutive seasons, both transfers, both first overall NFL draft picks, and Jalen Hurts finished second the year after that.
| Year | Player | Position | Coach |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1952 | Billy Vessels | Halfback | Bud Wilkinson |
| 1969 | Steve Owens | Running back | Chuck Fairbanks |
| 1978 | Billy Sims | Running back | Barry Switzer |
| 2003 | Jason White | Quarterback | Bob Stoops |
| 2008 | Sam Bradford | Quarterback | Bob Stoops |
| 2017 | Baker Mayfield | Quarterback | Lincoln Riley |
| 2018 | Kyler Murray | Quarterback | Lincoln Riley |
Billy Vessels, 1952
Vessels was the first Heisman winner from Oklahoma and the first from any school in the Big Seven, running for 1,072 yards and 17 touchdowns on a team that went 8, 1 and 1 and won the conference for the sixth straight year. He was the second overall pick in the NFL draft and chose to play in Canada instead.
Steve Owens, 1969
Owens ran for 1,523 yards and 23 touchdowns as a senior and finished his career with 56 rushing touchdowns, then a record, on a team that went 6 and 4. He beat Mike Phipps of Purdue in the vote and later served as Oklahoma’s athletic director.
Billy Sims, 1978
Sims ran for 1,762 yards and 20 touchdowns in the wishbone, averaging 7.6 yards a carry on an 11 and 1 team that won the Big Eight, and won the vote over Chuck Fusina of Penn State. He finished second the following year and went first overall to Detroit in 1980. Our Penn State Heisman page has the other side of the 1978 vote.
Jason White, 2003
White had torn ligaments in both knees in successive seasons before throwing 40 touchdowns against eight interceptions in 2003 and winning the Heisman over Larry Fitzgerald. Oklahoma lost the Big 12 title game and the BCS championship to LSU after the vote. He finished third the following year and never played in the NFL, which makes him the only Heisman winning quarterback of the modern era who did not.
Sam Bradford, 2008
Bradford threw for 4,720 yards and 50 touchdowns on a team that scored 716 points, still the most in a season by any FBS team, and beat Colt McCoy of Texas in one of the closest votes in the award’s history despite Texas having beaten Oklahoma head to head. He went first overall to St. Louis in 2010. Our Red River Rivalry page covers that season.
Mayfield and Murray, 2017 and 2018
Baker Mayfield arrived as a walk on transfer from Texas Tech, finished fourth and third in the Heisman vote in 2015 and 2016, and won it in 2017 with 43 touchdown passes and a 71 percent completion rate. Kyler Murray, a transfer from Texas A&M who had already been drafted ninth overall by the Oakland Athletics in baseball, replaced him and won it in 2018 with 5,362 total yards and 54 touchdowns, beating Tua Tagovailoa. Both went first overall in the NFL draft, the only back to back Heisman winners from one school to do so.
Jalen Hurts, another transfer, finished second to Joe Burrow in 2019, which gave Oklahoma three straight seasons with a quarterback in the top two. No other school has done that.
The Runners Up
Oklahoma has produced a long list of near misses beyond Hurts. Sims finished second in 1979, Marcus Dupree was a candidate before injury, Josh Heupel finished second in 2000 behind Chris Weinke on a national championship team, Adrian Peterson finished second as a freshman in 2004, the highest finish by a freshman at that time, and Mayfield’s two top four finishes preceded his win. Our Heisman winners by year page has every recipient since 1995.
The Bottom Line
Oklahoma has seven Heisman winners: Billy Vessels, Steve Owens, Billy Sims, Jason White, Sam Bradford, Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray. Four are quarterbacks from the Stoops and Riley years, Mayfield and Murray won back to back and both went first overall, and Jalen Hurts made it three straight seasons with a Sooner in the top two. The program is tied with Ohio State and Notre Dame for second most all time.