Oklahoma football: What will be Sooners’ most important game in 2018?

It’s a pretty typical Big 12 season when the Oklahoma football game is earmarked by the Sooners’ opponents as the biggest game of the season.

That is another way of saying that regardless of how up or down Oklahoma is in any given year, the Sooners will always have a target on their back because of the long-standing success and tradition OU has in the sport of football.

Oklahoma has won 11 conference championships in football, including the past three, in the 22 seasons the Big 12 has been in existence. That is more than three times the number of championships by the next closest team, Texas, which has won the league three times.

So if the Sooners are the biggest game, if not one of the biggest, on the schedule for most Big 12 teams this season — as is the case in most seasons — which conference team represents OU’s biggest challenge in 2018?

If you ask OU head coach Lincoln Riley what is the most important game on the schedule, he will tell you: The next one. That is the same, no matter what the year or who you are playing. Good teams, like Oklahoma, have to be ready to go each and every week, because you can count on getting every opponent’s best shot.

Singling out one game as the most important this far in advance of the start of the season is about like picking the four teams that will make the College Football Playoff. Everybody has their own favorites, but as the season evolves the situation changes, and what appears important or the best choice now may not be so when the actual time comes.

That aside, looking ahead to the teams Oklahoma plays this season and where and when the games will be played, I believe the most pivotal contest on the Sooner schedule, in terms of its impact on the remainder of the season, will be the annual Red River Showdown with the Texas Longhorns.

Oklahoma Sooners Football

As baseball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra liked to say: It is deja vu all over again. There were many a year when the entire season was based on the outcome of the Oklahoma-Texas game. This is largely true regardless of the year, but given the long history and tradition of this rivalry and the pride and strong emotional attachment on both sides of the 50/50 Cotton Bowl divide, some years are bigger than others, and this is one of those years.

Texas is the only team in the Big 12 conference, and one of the very few anywhere in the country, that has played Oklahoma 10 or more times and has a winning record against the Sooners. This year marks the 113th game in the series, with Texas holding a 61-46-5 advantage. Since 2000, however, Oklahoma is 12-6 against its longtime rival, including wins in three of the last four.

The OU-Texas game will be the sixth game of the season for both teams this season. Both teams will have played two conference games before the Red River rivalry game on Oct. 6.

The Longhorns finished 7-6 a year ago in their first season under head coach Tom Herman. It marked the first time in four seasons that Texas had finished above .500. The Longhorns are expected to be even better this season, but they will have a rough schedule stretch leading up to the showdown with Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl.

Throughout the history of this longtime gridiron border war, it hasn’t really mattered what the individual records or rankings were, or which side was considered the better team. You can throw all that out the window when these two teams meet.

That’s what makes this such a dangerous game for the Sooners, this year or any year, but especially this season.

Texas has one of the most difficult nonconference schedules among Power Five Conference teams, having to travel to Maryland to open the season (the Terrapins defeated the Longhorns in Austin last season) followed by back-to-back home games against Tulsa and USC. The Longhorns also must face TCU and travel to Kansas State before meeting up with the Sooners in Dallas on Oct. 6.

Oklahoma has home dates with Florida Atlantic, UCLA, Army and Baylor, with a road trip to Iowa State sandwiched in between ahead of the annual OU-Texas showdown in Dallas. There is a very good chance the Sooners will be 5-0 heading into the Red River game. This is one more reason to be concerned about this game if you are a Sooner fan.

It is no secret that the Oklahoma and Texas absolutely do not like each other. That is one of the things that makes this game so exciting and so unpredictable. In the early 2000s, the team that won this game usually went on to win to Big 12 championship.

This will be the first time in three seasons that someone other than Baker Mayfield has been at quarterback for OU against Texas. Mayfield’s experience, having played in this game for three consecutive years, was a huge factor in the Sooners winning two of the three games.

Mayfield is gone — which is great news if you are Texas —  and Oklahoma will need to find new ways to get the better of its archrival. That’s enough to make any Sooner fan nervous and anxious to get this year’s game over and done with and, hopefully, with something to show for it in the win column.