It’s springtime, and football is back in the air at college campuses around the country. Spring Oklahoma football practice began earlier this week.
It may only be March, but it is never too early to begin projecting who the top teams will be when the new season comes around in the fall.
Despite losing three key offensive weapons – running backs Samaje Perine and Joe Mixon and Biletnikof Award-winning wide receiver Dede Westbrook – most all of the “way-too-early” offseason projections for 2017 have the Sooners in the top 10 once again to begin next season.
Oklahoma ended the 2016 season with a second consecutive Big 12 championship, the 10th achieved under head coach Bob Stoops in 18 seasons at OU, and ranked No. 5 in the final Associated Press Top 25 for the season. No team in the history of the AP college football poll (which began in 1936) has spent more weeks in the top five in the country.
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This week, Phil Steele, one of the most respected analytical experts in the college game and best known for his annual College Football Preview magazine, came out with his projection of what the AP preseason top 10 will be when it is released just ahead of the 2017 college season.
Steele places the Sooners right where they finished the past season, at No. 5. He ranks Alabama, Ohio State, Florida State and USC ahead of OU in his projections. Oklahoma and Ohio State will play each other for the second season in a row, on Sept. 9 at Ohio State.
Rounding out the top-10 in Steele’s early AP top-10 projection are Clemson at No. 6, Penn State, Washington, Wisconsin and Florida.
Michigan is the only team in the final AP top-10 rankings that did not make Steele’s 2017 preseason projections. Also noticeably absent is Louisville, which returns the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, Lamar Jackson, at quarterback.
The Sooners are the only Big 12 team in Steele’s projected AP top 10, which includes three teams from the Big Ten, and two each from the SEC, ACC and the Pac-12.