The Undefeated

“[Dent] delivers compelling portraits of the tough and wild farmboy players who kept the wins coming. Wilkinson was certainly a winner. So is this book.” —Sports Illustrated 

For three perfect seasons (1954-1956), the Oklahoma Sooners won every football game they played—home or away—and over the course of five years they won forty-seven straight games. This awesome record was the product of a genius and masterful coach named Bud Wilkinson and the spirited young men he led.

The Undefeated details all the thrilling action on the field during this record winning streak, but it also reveals all the behind-the-scenes tumult and pressure swirling around it. Dent presents an absorbing character study of the brilliant, complex coach who engineered it all—Bud Wilkinson, the on-field genius whose starched-shirt public persona hid a man of many secrets—and an in-depth look at a state and its people still suffering from a Depression hangover and an identity crisis, who took up the Sooners football banner almost as a religious cause. Through it all, the young men who accomplished this amazing feat shine in vivid life.

“The Undefeated ranks with George Lynn Cross’s Presidents Can’t Punt, Barry Switzer’s Bootlegger Boy, and J. Brent Clark’s biography of Joe Don Looney as the best books about the Sooner football phenomenon.” —Berry Tramel, The Oklahoman 

“[Dent] has written another fine book, if not a great one.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Dent, an award-winning journalist and author of the New York Times best seller The Junction Boys, effectively captures the character of Wilkinson and describes how the team evoked the passion of a state that was still haunted by the Depression.” —Library Journal