Oklahoma football: OU knows how to break through crowded CFP doorstep

Oklahoma football begins the 2019 season — as they have had the good fortune to many times before, in this and the past century — in elite company.

Every major college team begins every season in perfect harmony and with the same goal: to win a championship. It could be a divisional championship, a conference title or, for a select few, the opportunity to play for and win a national championship.

A dozen times since 2000, the Sooners have taken home the Big 12 championship trophy. They haven’t been as fortunate in securing the national championship, but they do have one during that time, which is more than 95 percent of the rest of the college teams that make up the Football Bowl Subdivision can say.

Although Oklahoma has not won a national championship in 19 seasons, it isn’t as if they have not had their chances. Four times in the Bowl Championship Series era (1998-2013), the Sooners appeared in the BCS national championship game. They were 1-3 in those games, defeating Florida State in 2000; losing to LSU in 2003, USC in 2004 and Florida in 2008).

Since the national championship format changed with the introduction of the four-team College Football Playoff in 2014, Oklahoma has made three Playoff appearances, including each of the last two seasons. All three times, the Sooners were defeated in the national semifinals (to Clemson in 2015, Georgia in a thrilling double-overtime game in 2017 and Alabama last season).

The Sooners were a solid No. 2 seed in the 2017 College Football Playoff, but experienced some nervous days before securing the No. 4 spot in both the 2015 and 2018 final Playoff standings.

So that brings us forward on the calendar to July 2019, less than a month a way from the start of preseason practice and under 60 days before the official kickoff to the 2019 season. All four years Lincoln Riley has been at OU, the last two as head coach, the Sooners have finished in the top five of the final Associated Press and Coaches Poll rankings.

Most all of the college football preview magazines for this season have Oklahoma projected to begin the 2019 campaign in that same vicinity. Similarly, the Las Vegas oddsmakers have the Sooners’ Playoff odds in the 16-1 range and as the team with the fifth or sixth best chance to make it into college football’s version of the Final Four in basketball at 2019 season’s end.

That should be good news for Sooner fans. What it means is, if all plays out according to preseason form, Oklahoma should be right there at the end again this season contending for one of those precious four Playoff spots. That’s something the Sooners know something about, having finished the season strong in three of the last four years and survived some debate among the CFP selection committee members in two of those years to make it over threshold.

Coming into the 2019 season, Oklahoma is again loaded offensively, with playmakers in all of the skill positions and a championship caliber quarterback in Alabama transfer Jalen Hurts. That should be enough to scare the wits out of any defensive unit. And speaking of defense, if the Sooners can make any kind of improvement in a defensive unit that ranked 114th in the nation a year ago, their chances of making a serious national title run go up appreciably.

At least one national sports writer, though, likes Oklahoma’s chances to make it into the Playoff for a third straight year.

Chip Patterson of CBSSports.com was asked last week, on the video streaming sports channel CBS Sports HQ, if Oklahoma is a boom or a bust as far as a national championship run this season.

"“Boom-er Sooner! Big time boom here for Oklahoma,” Patterson said. Betting against Lincoln Riley (is) ill advised.“I think Oklahoma is going to be a College Football Playoff team again, and it’s a big time boom for the Sooners in 2019.”"

That should be a high note for Sooner fans to build on in the buildup to another college football season.