Backloaded Schedule Gives Sooner Football Golden Opportunity for Final Say
By Chip Rouse
When you look at the Sooner football schedule for this season, it is easy to conclude that no one in college football has a more difficult three-game finish to the regular season.
Without question, Oklahoma’s most difficult games of the season, and the ones that will have the greatest impact on what kind of year the Sooners will have, all come in succession over the final three weekends of the 2015 regular-season schedule.
That final-three gauntlet includes a trip to Baylor on Nov. 14, back home to take on TCU the following weekend and then a Thanksgiving weekend Bedlam Series matchup at Oklahoma State to finish out the regular season.
Nov 8, 2014; Norman, OK, USA; Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Trevor Knight (9) runs past Baylor Bears safety Orion Stewart (28) during the first quarter at Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
In fact, an anomaly in the Big 12 schedule in general has five of the biggest games of the season involving the preseason conference favorites all falling in a two-week window period between Nov. 14 and Nov. 28. Three of those games involve the Sooners.
There are two ways to look at the season-ending three-games on the OU 2015 schedule.
One view says you don’t want to play the most difficult part of your schedule in the month of November, when it is nearly impossible to recover from a loss that late in the season, as far as national attention and big-bowl prospects are concerned. On the other hand, wins at that time of the season against top-ranked teams almost count double in the eyes of the human poll voters and the College Football Playoff selection committee.
The way the Oklahoma football schedule sets up this fall (which college football guru Phil Steele rates as the 26th most difficult in the country), the 19th-ranked Sooners, according to the Preseason Amway Coaches Poll Top 25, should be favored in at least eight of their first nine games of the season. And the one game in which they will probably be a slight underdog, at Tennessee the second week of the season, is a very winnable game if Bob Stoops’ team plays up to its talent level and capability.
It is entirely conceivable – assuming the Sooners pull off the win at Tennessee and are able to win out in the annual Red River Showdown with archrival Texas and again one week later when they travel to Kansas State – that Oklahoma could be 9-0 when it goes up against Baylor in what will likely be a national TV broadcast on Nov. 14.
Oct 4, 2014; Fort Worth, TX, USA; Oklahoma Sooners cornerback Zack Sanchez (15) returns a blocked extra point for a two point conversion in the fourth quarter against the TCU Horned Frogs at Amon G. Carter Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports
It won’t help that the Baylor game is a road contest and that the Bears, who in all likelihood will be ranked in the top five or six in the country at that stage of the season, will have had two extra days to prepare the result of having played on a Thursday night the week before. But if OU were to be 9-0 or even 8-1 at the time of the Baylor game, there is no telling what kind of confidence boost that might give the Sooners and whether that would have an impact on the outcome of the game.
After two consecutive blowout losses to Baylor, a team that had never beaten OU until the 2011 season, the Sooners are almost certain to go into this season’s game against the reigning Big 12 co-champions with a giant chip on their shoulder.
After the Baylor game, OU returns to Norman for its final home game of the season (Senior Day) against a TCU team that has played the Sooners tough throughout Stoops’ time at Oklahoma (as a point of reference, the Horned Frogs own two wins on OU’s home turf, one of the most difficult places to play in the country for opposing teams).
The last three games with TCU, dating to 2012, the Horned Frogs’ first season as a member of the Big 12, have been decided by a combined total of 13 points. TCU won last year’s contest in Ft. Worth by a four-point margin, 37-33.
Dec 6, 2014; Norman, OK, USA; Oklahoma Sooners tight end Blake Bell (10) is pursued after a catch by Oklahoma State Cowboys cornerback Ramon Richards (18) during the second quarter at Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports
This could be a trap game for TCU, especially if the Frogs are caught looking ahead to their long anticipated grudge rematch against the Baylor Bears, the only team they lost to a year ago, and it took a 24-point fourth-quarter comeback by Baylor to get the job done.
Oklahoma owns a modest 9-5 record all-time against TCU and is 2-1 since the Horned Frogs joined the Big 12. The Sooners escaped with a three-point 20-17 victory the last time the Frogs visited Norman (in 2013).
As if having to go up against Baylor and TCU, the two current big boys of the Big 12, in successive weekends isn’t enough, OU travels to Oklahoma State to complete conference play. Many in the Sooner Nation blame the stunning way the Sooners lost at home to the Cowboys at the end of last season for OU’s pathetic Russell Athletic performance in a 40-6 blowout loss to Clemson.
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Regardless of last season’s regular-season-ending loss to their in-state Big 12 rivals, the Sooners have dominated the overall season, holding an 84-18-7 advantage in the all-time series and winning 13 of the 19 games since the Big 12 was formed. Importantly for 2015, OU has won six of the past nine games that have been played in Stillwater, including five of the last six.
I truly believe Oklahoma is going to be a better team in 2015 than the pundits and prognosticators are willing to give the Sooners credit for. But that will all be determined on the field.
The nine games the Sooners have to open the season could greatly work to their advantage in working work out the bugs in the new aerial-assault offense and building a winning mind-set before the stakes go up considerably in game week 10.
I am willing to bet that OU will be 8-1, if not 9-0, by the time it meets up with the high-powered Baylor offense, and I’m going on record declaring the Sooners will win two of their final three games. I’m not sure they will be able to upend Baylor in Waco, but I do like Oklahoma’s chances at home on Senior Day against TCU and I feel even better that the Crimson and Cream will turn the tables and return the favor of doling out a home loss to its hated rival up the road in Stillwater.
If all that happens – and I’m betting that it will – the Sooners should earn a pretty nice postseason bowl assignment, and we can look back on all the negative preseason chatter about Oklahoma’s expectations as much to do about nothing.