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Oklahoma football 2018: The hunters or the hunted?

By Christopher Dukes

PASADENA, CA - JANUARY 01: Head coach Lincoln Riley of the Oklahoma Sooners reacts on the sidelines in the 2018 College Football Playoff Semifinal Game against the Georgia Bulldogs at the Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual at the Rose Bowl on January 1, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
PASADENA, CA - JANUARY 01: Head coach Lincoln Riley of the Oklahoma Sooners reacts on the sidelines in the 2018 College Football Playoff Semifinal Game against the Georgia Bulldogs at the Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual at the Rose Bowl on January 1, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images) /
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If you read most of what was said by Oklahoma football players and head coach Lincoln Riley at Big 12 media day, you get the idea of a team on the hunt.

The underdog

They sound like a team that came within an eyelash of playing for a national title and has used the heartbreak of Pasadena as motivation for the past six months. They have been training both mentally and physically for another shot.

“At the end of the day, the main thing that will change the defense is the mentality and culture,” middle linebacker Kenneth Murray told 247sports. “(We are) Hungry.”

“We’ve been working a lot harder,” offensive lineman Ben Powers told Soonerports.com. “That might surprise you because we made it to the College Football Playoff last year. Obviously, we didn’t do what we wanted to do at the College Football Playoff, so we’ve been working a lot harder and we’ve been getting after it.”

It’s almost as if Baker Mayfield bequeathed his former teammates some of that massive chip that permanently rests on his shoulder.

The powerhouse

The Sooners may be on the trail of catching up with college football’s elite, but there’s another obvious storyline – the nine other teams chasing after Oklahoma.

To the rest of the Big 12 Oklahoma is the big, bad wolf. The team that has monopolized all the success in the conference and dominated the national media conversation for three years (and one could argue quite a bit longer than that). The Sooners have more Big 12 titles than the rest of the league combined. Other than a handful of redshirt freshmen, the entire Oklahoma roster has never been through a season that didn’t result in a Big 12 championship.

The paradox

So this 2018 team a bit of a paradox. They are both the hunters and the hunted. They want another shot at a big-time program on a big-time stage. First, they must play the part of favorites. Will Oklahoma’s resolve last through the 13-game grind? That’s up to a new group of leaders. For now they are certainly saying the right things.

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