Oklahoma Football Schedule for 2017 Has Sooners Hosting West Virginia in Finale

The Big 12 has released the 2017 football schedule for conference games, and the biggest change for Oklahoma football is moving back the Bedlam game with Oklahoma State to the midway point of the conference season instead of the final weekend of the regular season.

Sep 5, 2015; Norman, OK, USA; The Oklahoma Sooners take the field prior to action against the Akron Zips at Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports /

Given the way the season worked out this year, with Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, the top two teams in the conference standings, playing on the final weekend of the regular season, it was widely assumed that the 2017 schedule would not have the two Bedlam rivals playing in the regular-season finale in the immediate future because of what could have happened this season, having to meet in a rematch the following weekend in the Big 12 Championship game.

Next season, the Bedlam will be played the first weekend in November, in Stillwater, in game six of the Sooners’ nine conference games. Oklahoma will begin its 2017 conference season on Sept. 23 at Baylor, the first time OU has played Baylor that early in the season.

The Red River Showdown with Texas will take place on Oct. 14 in Dallas.

The last couple of years, the Sooners have finished out the final three weeks of the regular season against a trio of the league’s best teams. In 2017, Oklahoma will again have TCU in the difficult month of November, but next season the game will be in Norman, and on the final weekend of the regular season (on Thanksgiving weekend), the Sooners will host West Virginia. A road game at Kansas is sandwiched in between the November games with TCU and West Virginia.

The Big 12 Championship game is scheduled for AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Dec. 2.

What’s interesting about the way Big 12 officials have configured the conference schedule next season is Oklahoma and West Virginia, likely to be two chief contenders for the conference crown in 2017, are scheduled to play on the final weekend.

Oklahoma opens the 2017 season on Sept. 2 at home against the University of Texas-El Paso, a team out of Conference USA. The following weekend, the Sooners go to Ohio State for a huge rematch with the Buckeyes, and then it’s back home on Sept. 16 against Tulane, from the American Athletic Conference.

There is a good possibility that what conference officials were trying to avoid – having the same teams that played on the final weekend meet in a rematch the next weekend in the Big 12 Championship – is exactly what they are going to get in having the Sooners and Mountaineers play on the final regular-season weekend.

We’ll just have to wait and see how all of this plays out.

2017 Oklahoma Football Schedule

Sept. 2 – UTEP Miners

Sept. 9 – at Ohio State Buckeyes

Sept. 16 – Tulane Green Wave

Sept. 23 – at Baylor Bears

Sept. 30 – Bye

Oct. 7 – Iowa State Cyclones

Oct. 14 – Texas Longhorns in Dallas

Oct. 21 – at Kansas State Wildcats

Oct. 28 – Texas Tech Red Raiders

Nov. 4 – at Oklahoma State Cowboys

Nov. 11 – TCU Horned Frogs

Nov. 18 – at Kansas Jayhawks

Nov. 25 – West Virginia Mountaineers

Dec. 2 – Big 12 Championship game

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