It has been 115 years in the making, but barring nothing short of apocalyptic proportions this weekend, the Sooners will become just the eighth college football program ever to record 800 total wins. Sorry Utah State, but this Saturday just won’t be your day.

There are seven college football programs that have won at least 800 football games in a little less than a century and a half of the organized chaos we call football: Michigan, Texas, Notre Dame, Nebraska, Ohio State, Alabama and Penn State.

It is a fitting list considering that all these storied football powerhouses had at least one decade in the 20th century when they were the king of college football.

Notre Dame will forever hold onto the Rockne Years (1918-1930) as the quintessential era for all things Fighting Irish Football.

In only 13 years at the helm, Knute Rockne won three national championships, nearly one-eighth (105) of Notre Dame’s 837 total wins and is responsible for just four percent (12) of their losses.

The University of Michigan has had more than its fair share of great coaches, but the Bo Schembechler decades are the years Wolverines fans truly cherish.

The man who once told his players, “Those who stay will be champions,” did exactly that in Ann Arbor, Mich.

He won 13 Big Ten Championships and 234 games, but never won a national championship. In fact, after Michigan’s 1948 national championship, it would be 49 years before the Wolverines shared another in 1997 with Nebraska under then head coach, Lloyd Carr.

Texas, of course, had the Royal years (1957-1976). In those 19 years, Longhorn coach Darrell Royal brought Texas fans three national championships (1967, 1969, 1970) and a 30-game win streak.

He was so well revered that the folks down in Austin thought to name their stadium after him in 1996. To this day, the University of Texas football stadium bears the name of a native Oklahoman.

Woody Hayes ushered in a winning philosophy at the Ohio State University after beating out the legendary Paul Brown for the head coaching job in 1951.

From that year until 1978, Hayes brought five national titles back to Columbus, Ohio, along with 238 total wins and — in 1969 — the advent of “The Ten Year War,” which is still being fought today along the borders of Ohio and Michigan today.

The Cornhuskers lean on the legacy of Tom Osborne when the question of “best football program ever” is raised. As Nebraska’s head coach, Osborne totaled 255 wins and an 83-percent win rate.

He built three national titles for the Huskers in his final five years as head coach behind a 60-3 record.

The Penn State Nittany Lions have, and always will look to, Joe Paterno as the patriarch of not just Penn State Football but of all football. “JoePa” has been the head coach at Penn State since 1966 — the Beatles released “Eleanor Rigby” and “Yellow Submarine” as singles that year — and with his sixth win this season, he will be the first head coach to amass 400 wins in college football history. He has won two national titles and three Big Ten Conference Championships.

So, this is the lot OU will join. When you consider the Bud Wilkinson era — a time in which OU won 47 straight games from 1953-1957, three national championships and 14 Big Eight titles — the Sooners deserve to be called one of the best college football programs of all time. In that way, 800 is more than a number; it’s the exclamation point on 120 years of excellence.