Stormin in Norman
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Oklahoma football: Sooners still clinging to No. 6 in polls

By Chip Rouse

NORMAN, OK - NOVEMBER 10: Quarterback Kyler Murray #1 of the Oklahoma Sooners looks to throw against the Oklahoma State Cowboys at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on November 10, 2018 in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma defeated Oklahoma State 48-47. (Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images)
NORMAN, OK - NOVEMBER 10: Quarterback Kyler Murray #1 of the Oklahoma Sooners looks to throw against the Oklahoma State Cowboys at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on November 10, 2018 in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma defeated Oklahoma State 48-47. (Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images) /
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Oklahoma football continues to win and maintain status quo in the national polls despite itself.

The Sooners survived another big scare at home Saturday night, this time against a three-win Kansas team that hadn’t scored more than seven points against Oklahoma in the last four games between the two longtime conference foes. In fact, the past two years Kansas has managed just a field goal against the Sooner defense.

It was a different story this year. The Sooners are allowing opponents an average of 31 points a game (87th among 129 FBS teams), and on Saturday night in Norman, Kansas scored 40 against the Sooners along with 524 yards of offense. While it was a monumental offensive night for the Jayhawks, it wasn’t good enough to pull the upset over OU, which survived a 55-40 shootout.

There isn’t another one-loss team in the country that has given up as many points as Oklahoma. There probably aren’t that many .500 or better teams that have surrendered that many points.

Oklahoma Sooners Football
Oklahoma Sooners Football /

Oklahoma Sooners Football

Regardless, Oklahoma continues to win, and as long as the Sooners do so, the voters in the Associate Press and Coaches Poll rankings are sticking with them as the No. 6 team in the country. OU has held that spot for the past three weeks. Earlier in the season, the Sooners were as high as No. 4 in the both national polls.

It will be interesting to see if the College Football Playoff selection committee feels the same about the Sooners when the new Playoff rankings come out on Tuesday. For a third consecutive week, the outcome of Oklahoma’s games has been much closer than the experts predicted, and against teams in the middle or lower in the conference standings.

The top six positions — Alabama. Clemson, Notre Dame, Michigan, Georgia and Oklahoma — remain unchanged in both polls. Washington State moved up behind the Sooners, at No. 7, following its blowout over Arizona coupled with West Virginia’s loss at Oklahoma State.

West Virginia dropped several spots to No. 12, and Texas jumped over the Mountaineers to claim the No. 11 spot after beating Iowa State. The Cyclones fell to No. 25 in the AP Top 25, from 18th, and fell out of the Coaches Poll.

That sets up perhaps the Big 12 game of the year in Morgantown on Friday night between the No. 6 Sooners and 12th-ranked West Virginia. If Texas wins on the road at Kansas the same day, the Longhorns will secure one of the two spots in the Big 12 championship game the following weekend against the winner of the OU-West Virginia game.

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