Sooners’ Houston Loss Near Fatal, But Far From Final
By Chip Rouse
The Sooners’ path to return to the College Football Playoff a second straight season has become increasingly more difficult.
Losing right out of the gate at the start of a new season is never a good thing, but if you have to pick a time to lose, doing so early has much lesser impact on a season than going down to defeat late in the season.
Oklahoma is hoping to put that theory to the test over the next 11 regular-season games and on into the postseason. As the legendary Yogi Berra always said: ‘It’s not over till its over.”
The reigning Big 12 champions still have much to play for, not the least of which is a 10th Big 12 championship, far and away the most of any team in the conference (Texas is the closest to the Sooners with three).
So let’s be perfectly clear. The Sooners are certainly down after the stunning season-opening loss to Houston, but they aren’t out of anything yet. They will be, however, sooner rather than later, if they don’t play better than they did against Houston.
“We’ve got a long season ahead of us. Our guys are very aware of that,” head coach Bob Stoops said Monday at his regular weekly press conference.
After this weekend, OU’s schedule couldn’t lay out more difficult for a team teetering on the edge of remaining among the nation’s top teams for 2016. After the home opener this weekend, in which the Sooners will entertain Louisiana-Monroe out of the Sun Belt Conference, the No. 4 Ohio State Buckeyes come storming into Norman.
Following a week off after the Ohio State game, Oklahoma goes to TCU, one of the hardest places to win for visiting teams in the Big 12. The week after that it’s back to the Dallas-Ft. Worth area for the annual Red River slugfest with chief rival Texas, a team that appears to be considerably improved over the one that handed the Sooners their only regular-season loss a year ago.
The unranked Longhorns knocked off 10th-ranked Notre Dame last Saturday on opening weekend. Texas vaulted all the way to No. 11 in the AP poll after that win.
That takes care of Oklahoma’s first five games of the season, and if that’s not enough to get the attention of the Sooner players regarding the front-loaded the danger that lies immediately ahead, consider that coach Bill Snyder brings his Kansas State Wildcats to Norman on Oct. 15, where they have won the last two times they have played the Sooners at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.
Oklahoma has only lost eight times at home in Bob Stoops’ 17 seasons at OU, and two of those losses have been at the hands of Snyder’s K-State teams.
The difficulty of the first half of the Sooners’ schedule this season could also turn out to be a big benefit and ratings boost if Oklahoma is fortunate enough to get through it unscathed and owning a 5-1 record.
Six of the eight teams that have made it to the College Football Playoff in its first two years have had one loss. In fact, the last two national champions (Ohio State and Alabama) lost a game during the regular season. No team, though, has gotten there with two losses.
Two years ago, Ohio State lost at home to Virginia Tech by two touchdowns in the second game of the season, and ran the table from there, including a blowout win over Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship.
Alabama lost to Ole Miss in Week 3 a year ago, but went undefeated the rest of the way.
So the rest of the season for the Oklahoma Sooners begins this Saturday. The formula for getting themselves back in the College Football Playoff picture is as simple as it is difficult. It begins with a statement win over Louisiana-Monroe this Saturday and a huge home win, likely as an underdog, over Ohio State.
Then comes the conference schedule. Win out and capture a second straight Big 12 crown – with strength of the Sooners’ schedule this season that includes games with two ranked nonconference opponents – and it will be incredibly hard to deny the Sooners strong consideration for a return spot among the four 2016 Playoff teams.
About the only thing that I can imagine knocking Oklahoma out of the CFP conversation if the Sooners were to go 11-0 from here would be four undefeated teams.