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Oklahoma football: Sooners at No. 5 in post-spring top 25

By Chip Rouse

NORMAN, OK - SEPTEMBER 16: The Oklahoma Sooners take the field before the game against the Tulane Green Wave at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on September 16, 2017 in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma defeated Tulane 56-14. (Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images) *** Local Caption ***
NORMAN, OK - SEPTEMBER 16: The Oklahoma Sooners take the field before the game against the Tulane Green Wave at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on September 16, 2017 in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma defeated Tulane 56-14. (Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** /
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After a brief tease in February, March and April, Oklahoma football fans now have a stretch of four-long summer months to endure before the start of another college season.

Part II of National Signing Days for 2018 recruits in early February, followed by spring practice and the annual spring game kept football in the news and in the minds of diehard fans, but from now until August, pickings are slim insofar as breaking news, replaced by what ifs and a plethora of preview magazine predictions and preseason top-25 polls.

ESPN is one of the media sources that attempts to keep the college football fires burning year-round. The day after the College Football Playoff championship game, the first of the so-called “Way-Too-Early” Top-25 Polls start coming out.

On Jan. 9, 2018, not even 24 hours after Alabama’s 26-23 overtime victory over Georgia to capture the Crimson Tide’s 12 national championship in the modern era of college football (1936-present), ESPN was among the first of the outlets to publish a Way-Too-Early Top 25 for 2018.

Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma and Georgia were projected as the top-five teams, nearly eight months ahead of the start of the 2018 college football season.

ESPN has come out since then with three other iterations of its Way-Too-Early Top 25 for next season. The latest update, the post-spring version, was issued on May 2 and has Oklahoma and Georgia changing places.

The Sooners are now at No, 5, dropping outside the coveted top four, with Georgia moving into the No, 4 spot. Alabama, Clemson and Ohio State round out the top four, unchanged from the initial ESPN Way-Too-Early Top 25 projections at the beginning of the year.

Three other Big 12 teams are included in ESPN’s still Way-Too-Early college football top 25 for next season: West Virginia is listed at No. 11, TCU is in the No. 20 spot and Texas is 22.

Even though we are close to four months away from the new college football season, don’t expect the actual preseason top 25, especially the top five teams, to vary much, if at all, from these pre-preseason projections.

The discussion and debate over who’s deserving and who’s not — and who’s College Football Playoff worthy, or no — is what will keep college football relevant and building to anticipation well into the dog days of summer.

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