OU Football: Ranking the Sooners Remaining Nine Games of 2015
By Chip Rouse
The Sooners were off this past weekend, but this coming Saturday they begin Big 12 play with West Virginia paying a visit to Norman. That begins a series of nine consecutive weekends of OU football, all building to a final three-game gauntlet against perhaps the three toughest teams on the schedule – Baylor, TCU and Oklahoma State.
If the three-game swing to close out the regular season is considered by far the most difficult stretch, how do the other six league contests stack up in terms of importance and their impact on Oklahoma’s 2015 championship run?
Here is how we rank the Sooners’ Big 12 schedule in terms of almost certain wins, 50/50 games depending on home or away, and better be playing at your best or suffer the consequences in an overall difficult schedule. The games are ranked in terms of ascending importance:
Nov 22, 2014; Norman, OK, USA; Oklahoma Sooners running back Samaje Perine (32) runs past Kansas Jayhawks safety Isaiah Johnson (5) during the game at Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
9. At Kansas Jayhawks, Halloween game on Oct. 31
The Jayhawks have taken the place that once belonged to Baylor, at the bottom of the Big 12 with a canyon of difference between them and the rest of the Big 12. If the Sooners were to lose at Kansas – which, incidentally has happened to even the best of OU championship teams – it would be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, upsets in college football this season.
8. Iowa State Cyclones, Nov. 7 @ Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium
About the only chance the Cyclones have of pulling an upset in this game is if the Sooners are caught looking ahead to their opponent and giant challenge the following week, at Baylor. Oklahoma has won 16 consecutive games against Iowa State in football and owns an overall record of 72 wins, 5 losses and 2 ties. The Cyclones last win over the Sooners was in 1990, 33-31…at Oklahoma.
7. West Virginia Mountaineers, Oct. 3 @ Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium
West Virginia is a very dangerous opponent with a very good offense. The Mountaineers like to spread you out and get their speedy receivers in space in the open field. Something that the Sooners also like to do on offense, but don’t play well against on defense, with the Tulsa game being the most recent example. The fact that this game is being played at OU, and that the Sooners have had an extra week to prepare will be the difference in this one. Oklahoma’s offense will create plenty of problems for West Virginia. The team that plays the best defense will put this game away.
Oct 11, 2014; Dallas, TX, USA; Oklahoma Sooners defensive tackle Chuka Ndulue (98) in game action against the Texas Longhorns at the Cotton Bowl. Oklahoma beat Texas 31-26. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports
6. Texas Longhorns, Oct. 10 @ Cotton Bowl in Dallas
On paper, this looks like a year, Oklahoma should beat its Red River archrival handily. But that’s not what typically happens in rivalry games as big as this one. Texas has beaten the Sooners before very recently when OU was believed to have the better team (45-35 in 2008 when OU was No. 1 in the country; 36-20 in 2013, when the Sooners were No. 12 at the time and the Longhorns were unranked). It appears that Texas has finally found their man at quarterback, and he is a dual-threat QB, the kind that OU always seems to have trouble against. Oklahoma will be favored, but that, in itself, makes this a potential trap game for the Sooners.
5. At Kansas State Wildcats, Oct. 17
This game is at Manhattan against a Bill Snyder-coached team. Need I say more. If it weren’t for this fact, I would rate this game behind both West Virginia and Texas in terms of importance this season. Something else that stands out as entirely strange in the recent games between these two teams, the visiting team has won the past four games. The Sooners have won 72 out of 95 games all-time against K-State. Since Bob Stoops, a former Kansas State defensive coordinator, came to Oklahoma in 1999, OU and K-State have met 10 times, including twice for the Big 12 championship, with the Sooners taking 8 of the 10.
4. Texas Tech Red Raiders, Oct. 24 @ Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium
With its new Air Raid offense, brought in by new Sooner offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley, these two teams are mirror images of themselves, except that the Sooners are better defensively – but not by that much. This will also mark the first time OU quarterback Baker Mayfield goes up against his former team. It will be a highly emotional game. Texas Tech has come to Norman and won before – snapping the Sooners’ 39-game winning streak in 2011 – but OU should prevail in this battle of offensive juggernaut look-a-likes.
Dec 6, 2014; Norman, OK, USA; Oklahoma State Cowboys quarterback Mason Rudolph (10) scrambles with the ball while being pursued by Oklahoma Sooners linebacker Eric Striker (19) during the fourth quarter at Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports
3. At Oklahoma State Cowboys, Nov. 28, Bedlam Battle and regular-season finale
Last year’s devastating defeat to the Cowboys, in a game OU had all but locked up until the now infamous “punt over” occurred with dagger-to-the-heart-like results, left a bitter taste in the mouths of Sooner fans and players. You can bet this will be on the mind of OU when it travels to Stillwater for this game. Oklahoma will have gone up against arguable the Big 12’s two best teams the two weekends before, but this is the Bedlam Series, which means there is no way OU won’t be up for this game, regardless of what has happened the two previous weekends. Something else to bear in mind: OU has won five of the last six games played in Stillwater and 10 of the last 12 overall against its in-state Big 12 rival.
2. TCU Horned Frogs, Nov. 14 @ Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium
Texas Christian may have the best winning percentage of any visiting team to play at Oklahoma. The Horned Frogs have played the Sooners at OU six times in the all-time series and have beaten Oklahoma four times there. How the Sooners do against Baylor the week before this game will have a definite bearing on this game, the regular-season home finale for OU. This could be a game much like the one this past Saturday between TCU and Texas Tech, when those two teams put up 107 combined points. Of the two games this season with Baylor and TCU, the preseason co-favorites, the game at home with the Horned Frogs may be the more winnable of the two for the Sooners.
1. At Baylor Bears, Nov. 14
Even before the new season kicked off, it was pretty clear that playing Baylor on the road, sandwiched between games with TCU and Oklahoma State, would be the most difficult opponent Oklahoma would face in the 2015 season. After three games this season, admittedly against far inferior opponents, the Bears are averaging a nation’s-best 64 points a game. And as good a passing team as Baylor is, the Bears lead the country in rushing offense (379 yards per game). These stats will come down somewhat as Baylor gets into Big 12 games, but they are very telling, nonetheless. This game will be an extremely tall order for the Sooners. As Bob Stoops always reminds us, though, to be the best you have to beat the best.