Oklahoma Football Going Bowling in New Orleans: Playoff Field Is Set
By Chip Rouse
It’s official now. The 2016 Oklahoma football season will end in 2017 in…probably the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.
O.K., so it’s not totally signed off on and announced as of yet. Everyone with any sense or understanding of how these things work knows that Oklahoma is headed to New Orleans and likely to go up against Auburn, the second highest ranked team in college football’s toughest and arguably best conference.
Unless the top team in the Big 12 is in the College Football Playoff – which it isn’t, and shouldn’t be, this season – or, for some reason or the other, on probation, the Sugar Bowl is contractually committed to invite that team as one of the two participants. The same contract exists with the SEC, again unless that school is one of the four Playoff teams.
With Alabama the No. 1 overall seed in this year’s Final Four in football, the Sugar Bowl honors fall to Auburn.
In case you haven’t heard yet, Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State and Washington, all conference champions except Ohio State, are the four teams that are “in,” insofar as college football’s biggest stage this season. Alabama will play No. 4 Washington in the Peach Bowl on New Year’s Eve. Ohio State, which beat up on Oklahoma in Norman in the third week of the season, will square off with No. 2 Clemson in the Fiesta Bowl, which hammered the Sooners in one of the national semifinal games in last season’s Playoff.
For all the criticism that was leveled on the selection process in the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) era, it seems to me we haven’t gotten much away from that with the new College Football Playoff. Case in point is this year’s debate with Penn State finishing No. 5 in the final CFP rankings and being left on the outside looking in, despite having beaten Ohio State (albeit on a freak, blocked field goal at the end of the game) and an impressive victory in Saturday’s Big Ten championship game.
This is not to say that Penn State is necessarily a better team than Ohio State. After all the Nittany Lions did lose twice during the season, but they are probably better than Washington and, you could argue that Penn State’s strength of schedule was better.
But all of that discussion really doesn’t matter other than to make for good radio and TV talk-show debate and editorial conjecture.
Ohio State becomes the first non conference champion of the three-year College Playoff era, but they are not the only team not to win its conference and still play for a national championship.
That same debate occurred back in 2003, when an undefeated and top-ranked Oklahoma team lost, in dominant fashion, 35-7, to Kansas State in the Big 12 championship game. The stunning upset, however, only dropped the Sooners to No. 2 in the final BCS rankings and, therefore, earned a spot in the National Championship game against LSU, which replaced the Sooners in the top spot in the rankings.
Most of us are of the opinion that Oklahoma’s College Football Playoff hopes ended the night they were destroyed at home by a Playoff-bound Ohio State team that clearly, on that particular night anyway, exhibited much better talent and play execution than the Sooners. Give that one to the Buckeyes; no explanation necessary.
The Sooners also were upset by a ranked Houston team on the very first game of the season – a game that I candidly believe Oklahoma gave away. Two losses in your first three games after beginning the season No. 3 in the nation does not make for a championship season – not at the national level, anyway.
Oklahoma went on to run the table and win its 10th Big 12 championship in 21 seasons. That is seven more than any other team in the conference. Two-loss teams, however, generally are not Playoff worthy, and that goes for this season, as well.
College Football Playoff selection committee chairman Kirby Hocutt (who, as a matter of full disclosure, is the athletic director at Texas Tech) put all the debate about Oklahoma’s consideration in the 2016 Playoff discussion, into perspective.
It wasn’t as much the two early season losses as it was that this year’s Sooner team is not as complete a team as the other top teams in the country, Hocutt acknowledged on the ESPN College Football Playoff Selection Show on Sunday.
Simply put: OU is one of the top-four offensive teams in the country, but they also are among the six worst teams (out of 128 FBS teams) on defense.
That describes the 2016 Oklahoma football season in a nutshell. Despite that, the Sooners are still in a New Year Six bowl, and that is not something to complain about. Just to be clear, they aren’t.