Five Bold Predictions on 2015 Sooner Football

The 2015 college football season is nearly upon us. Here are 5 bold predictions regarding Sooner football in the coming season.

1. OU running back Samaje Perine, the Big 12’s leading rusher last season, will gain fewer yards in his sophomore season than the 1,713 net yards he recorded in 2014.

Don’t get me wrong, Perine will continue to run the ball with authority and be one of the top if not the best rusher in the Big 12 in 2015. He just won’t be the one-man wrecking authority he was a year ago. For one thing, he will share ball-carrying responsibility with fellow running backs Alex Ross and Joe Mixon, who are fast and talented rushing threats in their own rite.

The other thing is that defenses will be keying more on Perine when he is in the game, which means we probably won’t see any more single games when he piles up a record 427 yards like he did last season against lowly Kansas.

Sep 20, 2014; Morgantown, WV, USA; Oklahoma Sooners running back Samaje Perine (32) runs the ball during the fourth quarter against the West Virginia Mountaineers at Milan Puskar Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports

Also keep in mind that Lincoln Riley was brought in as the new Sooner offensive coordinator to change up things on offense with a different approach that hits on all cylinders and is more productive and sustainable. You can expect the Oklahoma offense to throw the ball more and more effectively than the Sooners have since QB Landry Jones left the program, which will mean fewer rushing opportunities for Perine.

2. The Oklahoma defense, much maligned in recent seasons, will once again be the key strength in the Sooner football arsenal.

The Stoops brothers, both head coach Bob and defensive coordinator Mike, are defensive-minded football coaches. That is the strong suit that both bring to the game, having played and coached on the defensive side of the ball.

In the early years that Bob and Mike were together right after Bob took over as the new head coach of the Sooners, the OU defense was the strength of the team. Oklahoma’s defense was regularly ranked in the nation’s top 20.

The Sooners’ most recent national championship in the 2000 season was more attributable to the way the defense played in the championship game with Florida State than what the offense contributed to that victory. Twelve points don’t win many games, especially in a matchup of championship teams.

OU led the Big 12 last season in defending against the run and was No. 8 in the nation in that category, but it didn’t do much to benefit the Sooners in a league with such explosive passing teams. Teams did not run that effectively against Oklahoma in 2014, but they quickly overcame that deficiency by lighting up the Sooner secondary, which ranked second worst in the conference and 117th in the country, yielding almost 300 passing yards per game.

Cornerback Zack Sanchez is an All-Big 12 performer, but last season he was surrounded with inexperience and players who were more or less feeling their way at the back end of the OU defense. With last season’s learning curve and the opportunity to learn from their mistakes, expect this group to work better together this season, aided by a group of linebackers that are the best in the Big 12 and among the best at that position in the country.

3. Baker Mayfield will start the season at quarterback, but he will have a short leash if the Sooners don’t get off to a strong start against Akron in their home opener.

With a trip to Tennessee looming in Week 2, OU cannot afford to experiment with the quarterback position, even if it is only the early going of the new season. Trevor Knight may start out the 2015 season watching from the sidelines, but don’t expect the redshirt junior to be there long if the offense coughs and sputters from the start with Mayfield at the QB controls.

Nov 1, 2014; Ames, IA, USA; Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Trevor Knight (9) throws against the Iowa State Cyclones at Jack Trice Stadium. Oklahoma defeated Iowa State 59-14. Mandatory Credit: Steven Branscombe-USA TODAY Sports

Bob Stoops is not a fan of platooning quarterbacks, but you can be assured that he and offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley will find ways to get Knight on the field and involved with the offense, possibly in Wildcat-like formations or in change-up schemes designed to get the defense off balance.

Regardless of how this plays out, both Mayfield and Knight have game experience as starting quarterbacks, which is a valuable benefit to have in reserve should an untimely injury fell the starter.

4. Oklahoma will pull off the upset of Tennessee at their place and ride that momentum to seven straight victories after that.

What that would mean is the Sooners would travel to Waco, Texas, for a Nov. 14 showdown with Big 12 title-contender and likely nationally ranked Baylor sporting a 9-0 season mark. Baylor has an even better chance of coming into its game with Oklahoma undefeated (likely 8-0), given that the Bears don’t have to face TCU, Oklahoma State or Texas until after the date with the Sooners.

Having something like this happen is far from a slam dunk – or perhaps, to keep things in the same vernacular, we should say, point-after kick –  however. The Sooners should take care of business at home against Tulsa, West Virginia, Texas Tech and Iowa State, but they would still have to escape the annual Texas State Fair and the Cotton Bowl with a victory over Red River rival Texas and then get by Bill Snyder and Kansas State on the road in the Little Apple to turn the fantasy into reality.

Very doable, though. Where would you suppose Oklahoma and Baylor would be ranked if the two teams came into the contest with undefeated 9-0 and 8-0 records, respectively? In several 2015 preseason polls, Baylor is ranked in the top five to begin the new season. Expect the Bears to be somewhere in the top five when OU comes calling.

If the Sooners were to run the table up to the Baylor game, I could see them right there, too, in the national hierarchy, perhaps at No. 6 or No. 7, which certainly would fool many college football experts who have much lower expectations for OU football this season.

5. Sterling Shepard will stay healthy enough to play in all 13 OU games this season – both at wide receiver and returning punts on special teams. The talented wide receiver will haul in 100 or more catches his senior season and double the 51 he caught in an injury-shortened 2014 season.

The 5-10, 191-pound receiver from nearby Oklahoma City, has never had more than 51 receptions in any of his first three seasons at OU. The bigger risk is not that he would go out and double his pass-receiving numbers in his final season of college football, but that he will stay healthy enough to give himself an opportunity to put up those kind of numbers.

Sep 13, 2014; Norman, OK, USA; Oklahoma Sooners wide receiver Sterling Shepard (3) runs as Tennessee Volunteers defensive back Brian Randolph (37) defends during the game at Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports

In the Sooners’ anticipated new “air-raid” style offense, you would expect the pass opportunities to go up from what they have been the past couple of seasons, and if that is a valid theorem, you would expect the sure-handed and speedy Shepard to be on the receiving end of quite a few of them.

Bonus prediction: Oklahoma will win 10 or more games this season, returning to double-digits in wins for the 13th time in Bob Stoops 17 seasons at OU.

If you are a believer in historical trends and/or an analytic or sabermetric type when it comes to college football consider this: In each of the three previous times a Bob Stoops’ Oklahoma team did not reach double digits in wins in a season, the following season the Sooners came right back with 11 or more wins.

• In 1999, Stoops’ first season as head coach of the Sooners, Oklahoma finished with a record of 7-5. The following season, the Sooners went 13-0 and won the national championship.
• The 2005 Oklahoma team was 8-4 overall; in 2006, OU finished 11-3 and was the Big 12 champion. That was also the season (2006) that the Sooners lost to Boise State in overtime in a highlight-reel game for the ages that will go down as one of the most thrilling finishes in college football history.
• Oklahoma was 8-5 overall in 2009, but came back the following season with a 12-2 overall record, topped off with a 48-20 blowout of Connecticut in the BCS Fiesta Bowl.

How will the 2015 version of the Sooners follow up their 8-5 season of 2014?