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OU Football: ESPN’s Power Index Has Sooners Rolling Through Big 12

By Chip Rouse

Nov 28, 2015; Stillwater, OK, USA; A general view of an end zone marker prior to the game between the Oklahoma State Cowboys and the Oklahoma Sooners at Boone Pickens Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Rob Ferguson-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 28, 2015; Stillwater, OK, USA; A general view of an end zone marker prior to the game between the Oklahoma State Cowboys and the Oklahoma Sooners at Boone Pickens Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Rob Ferguson-USA TODAY Sports /
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This may be the so-called Silly Season in the life cycle of college football – the deadpan time just prior to the start of another pigskin season filled with all words and no action – but there is nothing silly or out of line about the high expectations for OU football in the forthcoming 2016 season.

Nov 28, 2015; Stillwater, OK, USA; Oklahoma Sooners line up against the Oklahoma State Cowboys as they prepare to snap the ball at Boone Pickens Stadium. The Sooners defeated the Cowboys 58-23. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 28, 2015; Stillwater, OK, USA; Oklahoma Sooners line up against the Oklahoma State Cowboys as they prepare to snap the ball at Boone Pickens Stadium. The Sooners defeated the Cowboys 58-23. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports /

ESPN is the latest to jump on the 2016 Sooner football bandwagon projecting Oklahoma as the runaway favorite to cart home the Big 12 championship trophy in the final year before the return of an official championship game that will put the Big 12 back on par with the other Power Five conferences.

The Sooners were the last team to win a Big 12 championship game in football, at the time (2010) their seventh in eight conference championship game appearances – and if they prevail in 2016, as most experts project they will, they will have added three more league crowns to the Switzer Center trophy case in the six years since the last official Big 12 title game.

In its latest ESPN Football Power Index looking at probabilities for winning the Big 12 in 2016, the Sooners are listed as overwhelming favorites for a two-peat league title in the coming season. The FPI gives Oklahoma a 65.4 percent probability of finishing atop the Big 12 standings at season’s end.

Oklahoma State is listed a distant second to the Sooners, with a 17.7 chance of finishing atop the Big 12 in the coming season. Texas is third, at 4.7 percent, Baylor  fourth, at 4.5 percent and West Virginia is given a 4.1 percent chance of winning the Big 12 football title, according to the FPI calculations.

Oklahoma is one of five teams projected in the most recent ESPN Power Index to win 10 or more games in the coming season. According to the FPI, the Sooners have a 16.9 percent of running the table in the coming season, higher than the four other teams projected as 10-game winners.

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