No. 3 Oklahoma has been downright dominant at Owen Field.

For 20 straight games over the course of four years, ending just last month against Missouri, the Sooners (6-0, 3-0 Big 12) hadn’t even faced a deficit on their home field. Tonight, Texas Tech (4-2, 1-2) will try to prevent Oklahoma from winning its 40th consecutive home game.

The streak started in 2005, after a loss to TCU in the season opener, and has been going ever since. It has reached the point that players feel a certain amount of pressure to not let it end.

“It’s tradition. We can’t lose,” linebacker Jaydan Bird said. “I mean, we can. But it’s a mindset that we cannot lose here because of the tradition and the players before, what they have set here. We always give that extra effort so we can win it out. It’s awesome to know that we’ve won all that, but it can easily be broken in a day. One day, one bad play.”

It’s already the ninth-longest home winning streak ever in the Bowl Subdivision, and the Sooners can tie Notre Dame this weekend for the eighth longest. The record is 58 in a row by Miami from 1985-94. Alabama (57), Harvard (56) and Michigan (50) are the only other programs ever to make it to at least 50.

Boise State has the second-longest active streak at 34 in a row and has won 65 of 66 at home.

“You don’t want to be that team that lost that tradition, and the players before would be like, ‘This team lost it. We had the streak going,'” said Bird, who could be called into duty for the second straight week to relieve Tom Wort (concussion). “You kind of have a pressure but then you also have a chip on your shoulder saying, ‘This is who we are. This is what we need to accomplish.'”