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Oklahoma football: Sooners take a hit in College Playoff race

By Chip Rouse

PASADENA, CA - JANUARY 01: A general view of the 2018 College Football Playoff Semifinal Game between the Oklahoma Sooners and Georgia Bulldogs at the Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual at the Rose Bowl on January 1, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
PASADENA, CA - JANUARY 01: A general view of the 2018 College Football Playoff Semifinal Game between the Oklahoma Sooners and Georgia Bulldogs at the Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual at the Rose Bowl on January 1, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images) /
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A win is a win, but a too-close-for-comfort overtime win against an unranked team on your home turf has caused some college football experts to push the pause button on the 2018 Playoff viability of Oklahoma football.

The Sooners remain a solid favorite to capture a 12th Big 12 championship, but their stock among the chief College Football Playoff contenders took a hit over the weekend after their struggles to defeat an Army team that has not beaten a team in the nation’s top-10 since 1963.

The ESPN Football Power Index, which predicts a team’s performance going forward for the remainder of the 2018 season, gives Oklahoma a 50-percent chance of winning the Big 12, but only an eight-percent chance of winning out. According to the FPI, Texas Tech and Texas have the best chance of unseating the Sooners in the Big 12 title chase.

The chances of the Red Raiders and Longhorns to get by Oklahoma are presently listed at 18.4 and 12.3 percent, respectively. West Virginia, the team I believe is playing the best of any Big 12 team through four games, is given a 10.7-percent chance of capturing the conference crown, playing the country’s eighth toughest remaining schedule.

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Oklahoma, which was ranked No. 4 just two weeks ago in the Football Power Index, has dropped to No. 7 after Saturday’s games.

As far as the College Football Playoff race goes, the CFP Predictor, another metric compiled by the people at ESPN Analytics, has lost some favor with the Sooners as a Playoff contender. After sharing the fourth and final Playoff position with the Clemson Tigers after Week 2, Oklahoma has dropped down three spots, to No. 7, largely on the basis of back-to-back lackluster performances, particularly on the defensive end, against Iowa State and Army.

Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, Ohio State, Penn State and Notre Dame, all 4-0 like the Sooners, are ranked above the Sooners in the most recent Playoff Predictor. The Playoff Predictor lists OU’s chances of making the Playoff at 28 percent, but only a 10-percent chance of making it to the national championship game and only four-percent chance of winning it all. That’s down by almost 50 percent in all three areas what just one week ago.

It’s a long season, but Oklahoma is trending in the wrong direction with the more difficult of its schedule dead ahead.

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