Oklahoma has a long, storied history in the state of Florida.

From legendary players who hailed from the Sunshine State only to choose to don the Crimson and Cream, national championship wins and legendary rivalries, the Sooners' footprint in Florida still holds weight.

OU has played Miami in Miami, Florida State in Tallahassee, but when the Schooner rolls into The Swamp, it will be the first time.

The Sooners have also hosted the other major state programs from Florida in UCF — a conference opponent for one season in 2023 — South Florida in 2002, when then-athletic director Lee Roy Selmon wanted to kickstart his new program with a marquee road game in his old stomping grounds and Lane Kiffin’s Florida Atlantic squad in 2018.

Florida A&M and their fabled band even made the trip to Norman in 2012.

The Seminoles and Sooners have met eight times, five of them were bowl games — with two of those being national championship games (had FSU won the 1981 Orange Bowl against OU, they may have been rewarded a share of the national title). 

Those postseason matchups featured names like Fred Biletnikoff, Billy Sims, Bobby Bowden, Anquan Boldin, Bob Stoops, Roy Williams and even the first-ever Black American Heavyweight Champion, Ron Simmons, from professional wrestling’s WCW circuit.

The Hurricanes? While Sooner fans want to forget a portion of the period from 1985-1987, when the team played in 36 games, including two national championship games, and only lost three — all to Miami — there’s no doubt that the battles between OU and Miami were made for TV.

Despite all that history between the Sooner and Sunshine State, the other major program in Florida has little to no history with OU. 

A 2009 BCS National Championship win for the Gators over Oklahoma was the first matchup between the two programs. 11 years later, they would face off in the Cotton Bowl to cap off the COVID-19 pandemic season of 2020, this time a Sooner victory.

Joining the SEC brings a lot of challenges and benefits to the proud OU program. One of those benefits is the luxury of traveling to more college football cathedrals to play and write more history with other great programs.

Maybe in 20 years, Oklahoma and Florida will have built a similar relationship to the Sooners have with their in-state rivals.

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