University of Oklahoma Athletics
Sooners Named 2015-16 Best in College Sports
July 06, 2016 | Athletics
NORMAN – The 2015-16 athletic year will go down as one of the best in history for the University of Oklahoma, and the nation continues to take notice of the Crimson and Cream as OU was named the 2015-16 Best in College Sports by CBS Sports on Wednesday.
The Sooners beat out North Carolina and Notre Dame to top the leaderboard for the Best in College Sports, which calculates the success of FBS programs in football, men's basketball, women's basketball and two “wild card” sports.
The OU football team became the first of six Oklahoma teams to finish in the final four of their sport when it made the College Football Playoff after earning its ninth Big 12 title.
The Sooners' excellence continued with March Madness as the men's basketball team produced the program's fifth Final Four appearance. In addition, senior star Buddy Hield won the Oscar Robertson Trophy, Naismith Trophy and the Wooden Award as the 2016 national player of the year.
But it was the wild card sports that set the Sooners above the rest, as OU earned maximum points as men's gymnastics, women's gymnastics and softball finished the season at the pinnacle of their respective sports. The three national championships for Oklahoma tied with Oregon for the most by a school during the 2015-16 season.
Oklahoma men's tennis flirted with another national title, finishing runner-up for the third consecutive season after making a remarkable run as the No. 11 seed at the 2016 NCAA Championships. And the men's golf team was one of just eight teams to advance to match play at the NCAA Championships.
In addition to elite national finishes, four Sooner squads earned conference titles. Football, women's gymnastics and softball produced Big 12 Conference crowns while men's gymnastics claimed the 2016 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championship.
Five Sooners were named Big 12 Player of the Year in their respective sports: Chayse Capps (women's gymnastics), Buddy Hield (men's basketball), Baker Mayfield (football), Erin Miller (softball) and Maegan Neihart (rowing).
The success of OU student-athletes is a direct reflection of the department's leadership, as five Oklahoma coaches earned conference coach-of-the-year accolades. Patty Gasso (softball), K.J. Kindler (women's gymnastics), Bob Stoops (football), Jim VanHootegem (women's outdoor track and field) and Mark Williams (men's gymnastics) were all recognized as the top coach in their conference. Both Williams and women's basketball head coach Sherri Coale were inducted into their sports' halls of fame during the 2015-16 season.
For the formula, CBS Sports weighed football worth 2.5 times as much as other sports, while men's basketball was worth twice as many points. The Sooners earned 187.5 points for football, 166 for men's basketball, 50 for women's basketball and 200 in the wild card section.
