Oklahoma football: Tough multi-game stretches nothing new to Sooners
By Chip Rouse
By virtue of playing in the highly competitive, offensive-minded Big 12 Conference, Oklahoma football is virtually assured of having to navigate through a difficult schedule.
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The Big 12 may not be the strongest football conference in terms of teams at the top of the standings, but a good case can be made that it is certainly one of the toughest, top to bottom.
Outside of Kansas, which has won just one conference game in the last three years and is 3-33 overall in that time frame, every team in the Big 12 is capable of beating any other conference team on any given weekend.
And the Big 12 teams that regularly contend for the conference crown, including Oklahoma, do not shy away from challenging games in the nonconference schedule, either. The Sooners have been scheduling teams from Power Five conferences long before the NCAA made it a requirement in Division I.
Former head coach Bob Stoops was never one to shy away from games against tough nonconference opponents, clearly recognizing that it could cost you an early season loss and potentially knock you out of national championship contention. Second-year Sooner coach Lincoln Riley is of the same mind set.
In the last six seasons alone, Oklahoma has played home and home series with Notre Dame, Tennessee and Ohio State, and this season the Sooners begin a similar two-game set with UCLA, all elite programs and among the bluebloods of college football. Oklahoma was 4-2 in those games the past six seasons.
The Sooners don’t have to endure a particularly perilous three-game stretch in the coming season, at least not like they experienced the previous three seasons.
In both 2015 and 2016, Oklahoma finished out the regular season with a trio of games against three ranked teams. And last season, the Sooners had to face Big 12 runner-up TCU twice in the last four games on the way to their 11th Big 12 crown in football and the first under Lincoln Riley.
In 2015, OU finished out the regular campaign on the road against No. 4 Baylor, back home against No. 11 TCU and in a Bedlam brawl at No. 9 Oklahoma State. The following season, it was a three-game gauntlet with No. 25 Baylor, at No. 10 West Virginia and Bedlam against No. 10 Oklahoma State.
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Remember also that the Sooners began the 2016 season with a three-game stretch that included No. 15 Houston and No. 3 Ohio State (OU came up short in both of those contests).
Oklahoma won all six of those late-season challenges in 2015-16, and with them back-to-back Big 12 championships.
ESPN senior writer Chris Lowe examined the 2018 football schedules of every team from a Power Five conference to identify and rank the 10 teams he determined to have the toughest three-game stretches this season. Oklahoma did not make that list, but three other Big 12 teams did, and the Sooners factor in two of them..
Lowe ranked Oklahoma State as having the second most-difficult three-game stretch in 2018, West Virginia No. 5 and TCU with the 10th toughest three-game swing in the upcoming season.
The Sooners are the first team up in Oklahoma State’s arduous three-game stretch that runs from Nov. 10-24 and includes OU, West Virginia and TCU. The games with OU and TCU are both on the road.
While Oklahoma State’s tough three-game swing begins with Oklahoma, West Virginia’s trio of tough contests finishes out the regular season and ends with the Sooners coming to Morgantown. An interesting side note here: West Virginia has not beaten Oklahoma since become a member of the Big 12 in 2012.
Oklahoma’s most difficult three-game stretch in the coming season is probably the three games between Oct. 6 and Oct. 27 against Texas, TCU and Kansas State, in that order. The Sooners are a combined 5-1 against those three opponents over the last three seasons, and they will get the week off between the annual Red River Showdown to get ready for a road test at TCU.
It’s a relatively easy task to pinpoint the games that are expected to be the biggest challenges over a 12-game schedule. Those games are easy to get up for because you know you have to be at your best to win.
The harsh reality, however, is it’s the other games on the schedule, the ones that are easier to lower your guard against that end up making or breaking a season.