Oklahoma football: Where does OU’s championship run go from here?
By Chip Rouse
This past weekend marked the midway point in the 2019 season, and Oklahoma football is right in the thick of the hunt for not just a fifth consecutive Big 12 crown but a national championship run, as well.
After the big Red River rivalry win the Sooners are 6-0, ranked fifth in the country and in a perfect position to get to the College Football Playoff for a third straight year given the schedules all the teams ahead of them have remaining.
Only one other Big 12 team beside Oklahoma has yet to suffer a loss in conference play. That team is Baylor, and Baylor and the Sooners will play each other on Nov. 5 in Waco.
The Sooners will be favored in all of their remaining regular-season games, but this is also where the road ahead potentially becomes the most dangerous. Baylor may be the only remaining ranked team on the Oklahoma schedule, and the Bears still have to go to Oklahoma State and TCU before they host the Sooners, so a lot could happen between now and Nov. 5 to change that picture.
The possibility of having played just one ranked team all season, despite having a win in that game, does not help Oklahoma’s Playoff chances if they happen to suffer a loss between now and Selection Sunday.
At best, the Big 12 is considered the third strongest football conference this season, behind both the SEC and the Big Ten.
The Big 12 may be stronger than the ACC, but with the likelihood that Clemson will go undefeated the rest of the way and is the reigning national champion, and the SEC and Big Ten champions are almost assured of two other spots, it means OU is probably going to have go undefeated to earn one of the three remaining Playoff spots and not wind up in a controversy with a one-loss, non-SEC or non-Big Ten champion. The latter scenario is a decision process the Sooners will undoubtedly loss because of perceived schedule softness.
After a highly emotional win in a big-time rivalry game, like the win over Texas, it would be easy to have a letdown in the following game, especially given that the team the Sooners are playing, West Virginia, only has a .500 record and the game is in Norman.
Head coach Lincoln Riley said in his regular weekly media briefing on Monday that this week’s game with West Virginia will tell everyone a lot about the character of this year’s team and whether the performance last week was just a one-game phenomenon because we were playing Texas or whether they are really trying to make a difference here for the rest of the season.
Last week the most important game on the schedule was with Texas. That game is over now, and the most important game is the one straight ahead against West Virginia.
Of the Sooners six remaining regular-season games, three are at home (West Virginia, Nov. 9 against Iowa State and Nov. 23 against TCU) and three are on the road (Oct. 26 at Kansas State, Nov. 16 at Baylor and the regular-season finale Nov. 30 at Oklahoma State), where OU has won 22 consecutive true road games.
All of those game’s are vitally important for Oklahoma to remain on the road toward a potential Playoff spot and a shot at an eighth national championship. The Sooners need to bring the same focus, intensity and effort that they did against the Longhorns.
Something tells me they will and, if so, good things should should come of it.