Oklahoma football: Sooners building momentum in ‘Way too Early’ rankings
By Chip Rouse
The “Way too Early” rankings for 2019 that came out right after Clemson pummeled Alabama for the national championship had Oklahoma football projected as a top-five team and national title contender again next season.
Most of the media outlets that dabble in these “Way too Early” college football projections, including ESPN, like the Sooners to land somewhere in the No. 4 to 6 range when the Associated Press and others come out with their official 2019 preseason rankings in the late summer.
ESPN decided “after a month of (player) transfers, coaching moves, NFL draft entries and a second signing day it’s time to update (its version of) the ‘Way-too-Early Top 25.'”
Oklahoma isn’t changing head coaches — and why would it after two consecutive College Football Playoff appearances and three in the past four, four consecutive Big 12 championships, back-to-back Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks and a 46-8 overall record in the time Lincoln Riley has been at Oklahoma?
The Sooners are losing Kyler Murray, who earlier this week announced that he is forgoing a professional baseball career for the opportunity to play quarterback in the NFL, but they landed perhaps the biggest name among the offseason transfers in former Alabama quarterback Jalen Hurts. This will make the third straight starting quarterback for Oklahoma who began his college career at another school before transferring to OU. It turned out really well of the other two as well as the Sooners.
Hurts was 26-2 as a starter at Alabama, and came off the bench and led the Tide to a 35-28 comeback victory over Georgia in the SEC title game this past season that earned them the top seed in the College Football Playoff.
There is little question that the battle-tested former Alabama QB makes the Sooners better than they would with five-star QB prospect Spencer Rattler taking over the reins in his first college season. Plus it will enable Rattler to gradually acclimate to college ball and the Sooner system, learn the offense and groom under the experienced Hurts.
The Sooners return four offensive starters and 10 on defense, but they also had an outstanding recruiting year. After the second National Signing Day earlier this month, ESPN ranked the OU 2019 recruiting class, which includes four five-star prospects and 12 four-stars, as the fourth best in the nation. The Sooners’ 2019 class includes two of the top three wide receivers (No. 1 Jadon Haselwood and Theo Wease) ranked in the ESPN 300.
The college football writers at ESPN took all of this into account and came to the conclusion that Oklahoma was going to be even better next season than they originally thought. ESPN’s original Way-too-Early Top-25 rankings had the Sooners in the No. 6 spot. They have now upgraded OU to No. 3 behind No. 1 Clemson and Alabama, pretty good company, if I do say so.
The Sooners jumped ahead of Notre Dame (previously No. 5), Ohio State and Georgia into the current No. 3 spot in ESPN’s pre-spring football, pre-preseason, stratospheric outlook 2019 college football season. In other words, things could still change as we get much closer to the new season.
But as long as we’re doling out all this love on the Sooners, you’ve gotta love where things stand for Oklahoma football on this Valentine’s Day eve, a good six-months-plus before the start of the 2019 college season. With the way things have been going south for the Sooner men and women on the hardwood, it’s not too early to begin thinking about football.