Oklahoma favorite in Big 12, but in the nation?

If you were listening to the Herd today, then you may have heard Colin Cowherd’s early top ten in college football. Surprisingly, he had Texas at no. 10, had LSU and Alabama in the top five, but had his USC Trojans at no. 2. This could mean only one thing.

Cowherd has Oklahoma sitting atop his early poll of the best teams in the country.

I’m not saying it’s a stretch, or a bad assessment of Oklahoma, but going in to this season, are the Sooners really good enough from the start to contend for a national championship?

Cowherd had Kirk Herbstreit immediately following the release of his top ten, and Herbie said it best. OU for years has lost to teams they were much better than. 2006, the Sooners had Oregon, but some horrible officiating forced OU to walk out of Eugene in totla frustration. 2007, Oklahoma had a shot at the title game, but lost to Colorado early in the season. 2008, Oklahoma tripped up against Texas. I won’t both getting in to 2009.

Then in 2010, OU dropped road games to Missouri, who had a solid team, but had no business losing to Texas A&M. And last year, Oklahoma didn’t show up to the Tech game until the second half.

So why should anyone expect Oklahoma to not fall somewhere on their tough schedule. Though, Colin Cowherd isn’t too high on the Big 12 this season. He said it was a down year for quarterbacks, and that OU has a nice schedule that will set them up for several blowout wins.

Also, Cowherd says he likes Landry Jones, and is thinking the Sooners can get to the title game with the ‘Stache under center. Now I’ve tried defending Landry Jones for a long time, but I remember leaving Stillwater thinking there was no chance he could lead us to the promised land in 2012.

However, after thinking about it for a while, Landry is the conference’s best quarterback, and maybe we are giving some of the other Big 12 programs too much credit. Kansas State looks nice, because they have Collin Klein. West Virginia seems like a tall order, but in the back of OU fans’ minds they might be making these judgments based upon the 2008 Fiesta Bowl.

Oklahoma can get the job done, but we have flaws like the rest of the country. OU isn’t a great road team, and have to go to UTEP to start the season, Lubbock right before the Red River Shootout, and have trips to Morgantown and Fort Worth in a three-week span.

Do you agree with Cowherd’s selection of Oklahoma as the top team in the country this early? If not, is USC or another SEC school the top team in the country? Guess we’ll have to find out.