Stormin in Norman
Fansided

Something You Will Want to Know Now About OU Football 2016

By Chip Rouse

Dec 31, 2015; Miami Gardens, FL, USA; Oklahoma Sooners tight end Mark Andrews (81) celebrates after a touchdown against the Clemson Tigers during the second quarter of the 2015 CFP semifinal at the Orange Bowl at Sun Life Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 31, 2015; Miami Gardens, FL, USA; Oklahoma Sooners tight end Mark Andrews (81) celebrates after a touchdown against the Clemson Tigers during the second quarter of the 2015 CFP semifinal at the Orange Bowl at Sun Life Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports /
facebooktwitterreddit

The college football preview magazines are as much a part of the Silly Season in the sport, defined as the dead time between spring practice, the annual spring games and the start of preseason training camp in August, as anything else.

You’ve got all of the preseason national award candidate lists and, of course, the way-too-early top-25 projections, but in June and July the preview magazines get their time in the spotlight with their crystal-ball looks at what college football fans can expect in the 2016 season ahead.

Sports Illustrated, USA Today and the Associated Press have yet to register their vote on the preseason top 25. That will come around the first week or two of August and, for SI, the week before the start of the 2016 college football season.

Phil Steele, Athlon Sports, Lindy’s and Sporting News have already come out with their 2016 preseason projections, and three of the four have Oklahoma as one of the four teams to make it into the College Football Playoff, to be played again this year on New Year’s Eve.

Phil Steele, Lindy’s and Sporting News like the Sooners to be the No. 3 seed in the College Football Playoff this season. Athlon’s has Oklahoma as the Big 12 champion, but falling short of the football Final Four.

More from Oklahoma Sooners

Athlon’s projects the Sooners as the Big 12 champion and the conference’s  representative in the Sugar Bowl, where, under contract, they would meet the SEC’s second-best team, which Athlon’s projects to be the Tennessee Volunteers. If that were to come to pass, it would be the third consecutive season Oklahoma and Tennessee would meet, but the first in the postseason since

All of this is well and good, and purely hypothetical, but it also assumes that the Sooners will make it through a very difficult 2016 schedule against what is likely to be at least five ranked teams and win no fewer than 11 of 12 games in the regular season.

Oklahoma probably will be favored in all 12 regular season games. The Sooners certainly are capable of winning at least 10 and maybe 11 or all 12. The bigger question is: Will they? That’s something we won’t know until Dec. 3, but the prognosticators are starting to line up in favor of the Sooners’ chances, and that’s always a great motivator heading to the starting line.

Home/Oklahoma Sooners