Oklahoma football: The biggest game in 2018 isn’t necessarily the most pivotal

The biggest game in any Oklahoma football season isn’t necessarily the most important or most pivotal game on the schedule.

In the world of Sooner football, where it can be said there is more than one big game in any given year, that juxtaposition goes deeper than mere semantics.

Take last season, for example. Oklahoma’s second game a year ago was at No. 2-ranked Ohio State, a team that had hammered the Sooners 45-24 in Norman the previous season. Oklahoma won the game, and in decisive fashion, handing the highly favored host Buckeyes a 31-16 defeat.

The nonconference win at Ohio State was easily the biggest of the season for the Sooners in what most OU fans wouldn’t hesitate to call the biggest game of the year for the Crimson and Cream.

It was generally believed that it was Oklahoma’s two-touchdown win on the road at Ohio State that ultimately sealed the Sooners’ invite to the 2017 College Football Playoff for the second time in three seasons, and certainly enabled their No. 2 seeding ahead of both Georgia and Alabama.

Because the Ohio State win was largely responsible for Oklahoma’s selection as one of the four Playoff teams last season — in concert, of course, with the Sooners winning a third consecutive Big 12 championship — it could be argued that the terms biggest and most pivotal can be applied equally to the Ohio State game.

Only that wasn’t the case in 2017, and it probably won’t be this season, either.

The regular-season win over TCU, a 38-20 OU home victory, was, in my judgement, the most pivotal game of the 2017 season because it all but assured the Sooners of a spot in the Big 12 Championship game. Both teams entered the regular-season contest with identical 5-1 conference records. As it turned out, TCU and OU met again in a rematch in the Big 12 title game, with Oklahoma prevailing a second time, 41-17.

The 2018 Oklahoma football schedule doesn’t include a team the likes of Ohio State in the nonconference portion this time around, but there are some big games nonetheless.

Oklahoma Sooners Football

Florida Atlantic, UCLA and Army makeup the Sooners’ nonconference schedule this season. OU plays host to all three. While UCLA, out of the Pac-12 Conference, is certainly not an opponent to be ignored, before you conjure the idea of FAU and Army not being at a competitive-enough level to come to Norman and give Oklahoma a good game, consider that the two teams produced a combined record of 21-6 a year ago.

Kansas, which has won only three games the last three seasons. may be the closest thing to a sure win the Sooners have on the schedule this season, especially given the Jayhawks come to Norman. Every other OU Big 12 opponent has the makings for a big game. And you can be assured that the OU game is circled on the calendar as the biggest game for every Big 12 team the Sooners play.

The biggest game on the Sooners’ 2018 schedule, as it is in many years, is shaping up to be the annual rivalry game with the Texas Longhorns. For most of the first decade of the 2000s, the winner of the Oklahoma-Texas game was considered to have the inside track to win the Big 12, which generally leads to a big postseason bowl assignment.

Texas has been down the past several years, but the Horns are expected to be much improved in their second season under head coach Tom Herman. Moreover, this year’s showdown on Oct. 6 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas may be the first time since 2012 that both teams have come into the game nationally ranked.

If you ask the Sooner players and fans, they will tell you that the Texas game is always the biggest game of the year. While that is generally true, in 2018 it won’t be the most important or the most pivotal game on the calendar.

On Thanksgiving weekend this season, Oklahoma will travel to Morgantown, West Virginia for a night contest on Black Friday against the Mountaineers. Undoubtedly, there will be plenty of storylines surrounding this regular-season finale for both teams. The biggest one may be the possibility that it will decide the regular-season conference champion. And there is an equally good probability that the same two teams will meet again the following weekend, in Arlington, Texas, in the Big 12 Championship.

Ironically, that is exactly what Big 12 officials were trying to avoid when last season they moved the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State, which traditionally was played on the final weekend of the regular season for those two teams. to earlier in the schedule.

West Virginia enters the season with arguably the best quarterback in the Big 12 and should definitely be a contender to dethrone the Sooners as Big 12 champions. The Mountaineers will have an added incentive to take down mighty Oklahoma. The Sooners are the only team West Virginia has not beaten in its six seasons as a member of the Big 12 Conference.

Circle Nov. 23 on your calendar. The Oklahoma-West Virginia game could easily be bigger than biggest.