For those of us, however, who saw the great Sooner teams in the 1950s play with him at quarterback, it represented college football at its best. Oklahoma was the Alabama of college football back then, and Jimmy Harris was a big part of the Sooner’s mid-century success.
Harris played quarterback for Bud Wilkinson’s undefeated Oklahoma teams from 1954 through 1956. He took over the starting quarterback duties in the second game of the 1954 season, at the front end of the Sooners’ incredible 47-game winning streak. The Sooner starter, Gene Calame, suffered a broken collarbone against TCU in OU’s second game that season.