The 2004 Dr Pepper Big 12 Football Championship Game was played on December 4, 2004 in Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. The game determined the 2004 football champions of the

Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its ...

. The #2

Oklahoma Sooners The Oklahoma Sooners are the athletic teams that represent the University of Oklahoma, located in Norman. The 19 men's and women's varsity teams are called the "Sooners", a reference to a nickname given to the early participants in the Land Ru ...

defeated the

Colorado Buffaloes The Colorado Buffaloes are the athletic teams that represent the University of Colorado. The university sponsors 17 varsity sports teams. Both the men's and women's teams are called the Buffaloes (Buffs for short) or, rarely, the Golden Buffalo ...

42-3.

The teams

The

came into the game with a perfect 11–0 record and #2 in the nation. They started the

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and ...

with four home games, defeating

Bowling Green A bowling green is a finely laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of turf for playing the game of bowls. Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding of Thrupp, near Stroud, UK, invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep ...

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

, and

Texas Tech Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sys ...

. The Sooners then traveled to

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

for the

Red River Shootout The Oklahoma–Texas football rivalry is a college football rivalry game between border rivals Oklahoma and Texas. The two teams first played each other in 1900, and the rivalry has been renewed annually and uninterrupted since 1929 for a tota ...

against #5

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

, which they won 12-0. Oklahoma then beat

Kansas State Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant college in 1863 and was the first public instit ...

on the road; then returned home for their homecoming game against

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...

. Their next two games were both road games against ranked conference opponents; they beat #20

Oklahoma State Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...

and #22

Texas A&M Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

. They finished the season with wins at home against

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the sout ...

and at Baylor. The

came into the game with a 7–4 record; they were co-champions of the North Division (with Iowa State) and got into the championship game via head-to-head result. The Buffaloes started the season with three wins: Colorado State (in the

Rocky Mountain Showdown The Rocky Mountain Showdown is the name given to the Colorado–Colorado State football rivalry. It is an American college football intrastate rivalry between the University of Colorado Buffaloes and the Colorado State University Rams; the wi ...

), at

Washington State Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washington ...

and back home against

North Texas North Texas (also commonly called North Central Texas) is a term used primarily by residents of Dallas, Fort Worth, and surrounding areas to describe much of the north central portion of the U.S. state of Texas. Residents of the Dallas–Fort Wo ...

. They lost the next two games against

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

and #21

. They beat Iowa State by 5, which would ultimately be their ticket into the Big 12 Championship Game. They dropped their next two matchups, losing to #17

and #8

. They finished the regular season with three wins, however: at

, at home against

, and at

Game summary

Oklahoma's success was fueled by quarterback Jason White, who exceeded 250 yards passing. The Sooners' offense ran over Colorado's defense, finishing the game with 498 total yards (to Colorado's 46) and 26 first downs (to Colorado's 3). They controlled the ball for just over 24 minutes, as opposed to the Buffaloes' 12 minutes of possession. The Sooners' defense showed up as well; Colorado finished the game 0-12 on third down conversions and 0-1 on fourth down conversions.

Scoring summary

Statistics

References

{{Oklahoma Sooners football navbox Big 12 Championship Game Big 12 Championship Game Colorado Buffaloes football games Oklahoma Sooners football games 2000s in Kansas City, Missouri December 2004 sports events in the United States 2004 in sports in Missouri