If you place stock in what the annual college football preview magazines are telling us, the Oklahoma football dominance in the Big 12 will continue for another season.
All of the major preview publications – Phil Steele, Athlon Sports, Street & Smith, Lindy’s and Sporting News — have the Sooners winning a fourth consecutive Big 12 crown in 2018. That would be Oklahoma’s 12th since the Big 12 came into existence 22 years ago.
The Sooners also were the choice of the media who cover Big 12 football to come out on top in 2018 in this year’s annual Big 12 Football Preseason Media Poll.
It’s not so much a question any more of who will win the Big 12, but rather how the teams will line up behind the Sooners when the dust settles in early December.
Since the Big 12 disbanded its two-division structure in 2012, when the league was realigned and reduced to 10 teams, the Sooners have finished first five times, second once and fourth once.
Over the last six seasons (2012-17), Oklahoma has an overall record of 64-15 and is 45-9 against teams in the Big 12. That is nine games better than the second best team in league play, Oklahoma State, which owns a 36-18 mark.
While there is widespread support for Oklahoma as the team to beat in the Big 12 again this season, there is far less certainty — outside of Kansas once again bringing up the tail end of the conference — on to how the other chips will fall.
We’ve gone through the entire 2018 schedule for every Big 12 team, picking the winners and losers of 75 regular-season games, based on what we know now.
Here is how the dust settled and how the nine other teams should stack up behind the Sooners this season (projected wins and losses in parentheses overall record first, followed by conference projection):