College Football Playoff: Oklahoma No. 14 in Initial CFP Top 25
By Chip Rouse
The first College Football Playoff rankings for the 2016 season have been released, and Oklahoma heads all Big 12 teams, but, as expected, is far down the list of teams vying to make it into college football’s Final Four.
The Sooners (6-2) are at No. 14 in the initial College Football Playoff rankings that will determine the four teams that will compete for a national championship this season.
Alabama, Clemson, Michigan and Texas A&M are the four teams that sit in the coveted top four positions in the first of six weekly College Football Playoff rankings this season, which culminates on Dec. 4, Selection Sunday, when the four teams to make this year’s Playoff will be revealed.
The biggest surprise among the current top four teams is Texas A&M jumping No. 5 and still unbeaten Washington, which is ranked 4th in both the Associated Press and Coaches polls this week.
Baylor, Oklahoma State and West Virginia rank 17th, 18th and 20th in the first Playoff rankings of 2016. Oklahoma has games still remaining with all three of those teams over the final month of the season.
The remainder of the top 10 in the first College Football Playoff rankings for this season are: 6. Ohio State, 7. Louisville, 8. Wisconsin, 9. Auburn and 10. Nebraska. All are one-loss teams, except Wisconsin and Auburn, both with two losses.
While the mountain is extremely steep and the odds extremely long that Oklahoma will make it back to the College Football Playoff this season, it is not totally out of the question.
The Sooners were at No. 15 when the initial Playoff rankings came at this time a year ago. Successive wins over Baylor, TCU and finally Oklahoma State, each in a position a year ago to win the Big 12, allowed the Sooners to jump all the way up to No. 3 at one point before finally settling into the No. 4 and final position and earn one of the four coveted spots in the 2015 College Football Playoff.
This time around, it will require what ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit describes as “chaos” to occur among the teams ahead of Oklahoma in the rankings for the Sooners to fight their way back into contention.
The Sooners are in position to run the table the rest of the way and win their 10th conference championship under Bob Stoops. To accomplish that, however, they will have to get by Baylor and Oklahoma State at home, and perhaps the biggest hurdle of all will be pulling out a win in Morgantown against West Virginia.
If they are able to do all that, though, the Sooners will at the very least be guaranteed a spot in the Sugar Bowl, one of the prized New Year’s Six bowls, and who knows? Stranger things do and have happened.
If the season were to end today, Oklahoma would be paired against Auburn on Dec. 2 in the Sugar Bowl. Not a bad second prize, certainly, if you miss out on the grand prize.