Switzer played football at the University of Arkansas. After graduation, he joined the U.S. Army and after returned to Arkansas as an assistant coach.
Following the 1966 season, Switzer moved to the University of Oklahoma as an assistant coach
Following the 1966 season, Switzer moved to the University of Oklahoma as an assistant coach under new Head Coach Jim Mackenzie. After Mackenzie died of a heart attack following spring practice of 1967, Switzer continued as an assistant under former University of Houston assistant and new Oklahoma Head Coach Chuck Fairbanks.
Switzer quickly made a name for himself by perfecting the Wishbone Offense and developing it into the most prolific rushing offense in college football history. Under Switzer, the Sooners set a NCAA rushing record of 472 yards per game in 1971 and scored over 500 points in 1971 and 1986.
When Fairbanks accepted the position of Head Coach of the New England Patriots following the 1972 season, Switzer was the obvious choice to succeed him.
Head Coach and good friend Jim Mackenzie. After Mackenzie died of a heart attack following spring practice of 1967, Switzer continued as an assistant under former University of Houston assistant and new Oklahoma Head Coach Chuck Fairbanks.
Switzer became head coach at Oklahoma in 1973, leading the team to undefeated seasons that year (10-0-1) and the next, when the Sooners went 11-0 and won the national championship. They repeated as champs in 1975, winning 11 games against just one defeat. His teams won or shared the Big Eight Conference title every year between 1973 and 1980, included 1978 Heisman winner Billy Sims and played for another championship in 1977, but lost.
Oklahoma slumped slightly in the early 1980s, but rebounded with another conference title in 1984, when the Sooners again played for the National Title and lost. They won it the next year, going 11-1 and upsetting top-ranked Penn State in the Orange Bowl. The next two years, they posted the same record but finished ranked third in the final polls both seasons.
Switzer resigned from his coaching position at Oklahoma early in 1989, with a career record of 157-29-4. His winning percentage of .837 is fourth-best all-time, and he posted remarkable records against several famous contemporaries, going 3-0-1 against Darrell Royal, 12-5 against Tom Osborne, 5-3 against Jimmy Johnson, 2-0 against Bobby Bowden and 1-0 against Joe Paterno and Woody Hayes.
he is one of four coaches to win over 100 games at the University of Oklahoma. No other college football program has more than three coaches accomplish that feat.
Switzer was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2002.
Articles about Switzer form the SI Vault
September 24, 1990 | Ron Fimrite
Ex-coaches Switzer and Landry still vie to be No. 1
September 24, 1990 | Rick Telander
"Mea culpa" is plainly not the thrust of these memoirs by the controversial coach
September 25, 1989 | Edited by Craig Neff
July 03, 1989 | Edited by Steve Wulf
BLIND TO THE DANGER
March 27, 1989 | Edited by Gay Flood
DISGRACE Your three-part special report on lawlessness in college athletics (Feb. 27) hit the nail on the head. The folks at the NCAA ought to realize the gravity of the situation and take drastic action. College...
February 27, 1989 | Rick Telander
November 28, 1988
Going into Saturday's game against Oklahoma in Norman, Nebraska had beaten the Sooners only four times in the past 12 seasons. But in a howling downpour of rain, sleet and snow, the Huskers gutted out a 7-3 victory...
November 14, 1988 | Bruce Newman
January 11, 1988 | Rick Telander
January 13, 1986 | Rick Reilly
October 21, 1985 | Pat Putnam
Oklahoma's ferocious defense stopped the Texas attack in its tracks as the Sooners won the annual showdown in Dallas 14-7
October 07, 1985 | Hank Hersch
SOUTH
September 04, 1985 | John Garrity
Was it St. Augustine who said, "Mistakes'll kill ya"? Probably not. Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer probably said it, just after the 1983 season. "We were 8-4 that year," Switzer says. "But we didn't look even that...
August 19, 1985 | Edited by Franz Lidz
•Barry Switzer, Oklahoma football coach, on why his school has an in-state recruiting edge over Oklahoma State: "OU is easier to spell than OSU."
December 03, 1984 | Douglas S. Looney
Oklahoma State made it close for a change, but Oklahoma won again
October 22, 1984 | Douglas S. Looney
After being down and nearly out, Texas got a draw with Oklahoma
September 05, 1984 | N. Brooks Clark
Ah, those lovable Sooners: a 90-yard touchdown one minute, a fumble the next; a problem with grades one week, a minor crime wave the next. Well, the word is out in Norman that after last year's carnival, enough is...
February 20, 1984 | Edited by Jerry Kirshenbaum
DUBIOUS DISTINCTIONS
December 05, 1983 | Jack McCallum
Nebraska remained unbeaten and No. 1 by holding off Oklahoma
October 31, 1983 | N. Brooks Clark
October 24, 1983 | Douglas S. Looney
October 24, 1983 | Edited by Jerry Kirshenbaum
DOING ZIP AT OKLAHOMAIt turns out that before taking a powder altogether last week, Oklahoma Running Back Marcus Dupree had done "Zip, nothing" in the classroom this year, as the Sooners' academic adviser put it...
July 04, 1983 | Edited by Gay Flood
SWITZER AND DUPREESir:Having been born and raised in Oklahoma, I was surprised at Douglas S. Looney's article (New Philadelphia Story, June 20) about the "clash of wills" between Oklahoma Football Coach Barry Switzer...
June 20, 1983 | Douglas S. Looney
Nebraska Posts A Real Big Victory
December 06, 1982 | John Papanek
The Huskers outscored Oklahoma to gain a berth in the Orange Bowl
November 15, 1982 | Ralph Wiley
Freshman I Back Marcus Dupree has Oklahoma running once again
October 11, 1982 | Alexander Wolff
January 19, 1981 | Edited by Jerry Kirshenbaum
•Sam Rutigliano, Cleveland Brown coach, who grew up in the same Brooklyn neighborhood as Oakland Raider Managing Partner Al Davis: "He's Mr. Intrigue. He knows the serial number of the Unknown Soldier."
December 03, 1979 | Douglas S. Looney
In his final regular-season game, Billy Sims shredded Nebraska for 247 yards, leading Oklahoma to a win and the Orange Bowl
October 22, 1979 | Douglas S. Looney
September 10, 1979 | John Papanek
The race is on: the incumbent, Oklahoma's Billy Sims, who won the 1978 Heisman, vs. the worthy opponent, Charles White, a superb campaigner backed by the No. 1 USC machine
August 27, 1979 | Joe Marshall
All the glossy statistics and press clippings from college games don't mean a thing when a rookie appears at an NFL training camp, as several record-busting kickers have ruefully discovered during the preseason
October 16, 1978 | Douglas S. Looney
September 11, 1978
OFFENSE
August 02, 1976
The Torch is extinguished at the Olympics' end, but not until more anthems play for victors in boxing, basketball, track and field, archery and yachting events. The staff wraps up the XXI Summer Games.
April 05, 1976 | Edited by Robert W. Creamer
•Gaius Maecenas, Roman statesman (70-8 B.C.), on the Olympic Games: "Cities should not waste their resources on expenditure for a large number and variety of Games, lest they exhaust themselves in futile exertion and...
January 12, 1976 | John Underwood
When the Buckeyes gambled with passes and lost to UCLA, the Sooners cashed in to win the national title
November 17, 1975 | Larry Keith
Everything was up to date with Kansas; Oklahoma was not O.K.
October 06, 1975 | Edwin Shrake
That's Joe Washington of Oklahoma—just here, now there, hit hard, still moving—a runner who Sooner fans insist is the best in the country
October 11, 1971 | Harold Peterson
