Oklahoma football: Staff roundtable – 12 questions facing OU in 2019
Do you think the Sooners will win the national title? Why?
CR: If Oklahoma can improve the defense even a little, it definitely has the offensive firepower to stand up to any team in the country. That in itself should be enough to get the Sooners into the College Football Playoff for a third consecutive year and fourth time in six seasons. The problem is that defending national champion Clemson and Alabama are a cut above every other team in the country, and if the Sooners are one of the four teams to make the CFP this season, they are likely to face one or the other in the semifinal round.
More from Stormin in Norman
- Oklahoma football: ESPN, USA Today bowl projections after Week 3
- Oklahoma football: Sooner ‘D’ grading well, but real test begins with Big 12 play
- Two Oklahoma football players receive Big 12 weekly honors
- Oklahoma football: Sooners’ stock rising fast in ESPN prospective rankings
- Oklahoma football: Sooners leaving opponents in the dust early and often
Stranger things have happened (e.g., OU’s improbable win over the Crimson Tide in the 2015 Sugar Bowl), but I don’t see OU being able to get by either Clemson or Alabama if it comes down to that.
CD: Alabama and Clemson are the two top dogs in college football and in a class nobody else has been able to touch in the past few seasons, but the Sooners have been knocking at the door of joining them since Lincoln Riley arrived in 2015 and most of this was done with sub-par play on the defensive side of the ball.
Imagine if the Oklahoma defense was able to make a couple more key stops against Georgia, or slow down the Alabama offense enough to let Kyler Murray have a chance at coming back against the Crimson Tide?
I think this year’s team can do just that by creating turnovers and disrupting opposing offenses. I still expect to see some big plays from Sooner opponents, but just a few more from the defense could be enough to help this team get over the hump and hoist the national championship trophy for the first time in 19 years.