Oklahoma football: Really, Utah was once ranked higher than OU?

Just a month ago, there was considerable nationwide debate about whether Utah was more deserving of the fourth and final College Football Playoff spot than the Oklahoma football team.

Heading into conference championship week at the beginning of December, Utah sat at No. 5 in the College Football Playoff rankings. Oklahoma followed right behind, at No. 6. Conventional wisdom was that all that needed to happen for the Utes to claim the fourth Playoff spot was a win over Oregon for the Pac-12 championship and a loss by Georgia to LSU in the SEC championship game.

That was one popular scenario. But what about Oklahoma? Should the Sooners defeat Baylor, a higher-ranked team than Oregon, for a second time in the Big 12 championship game, an argument could be made that OU was the more deserving Playoff team over the Utes.

Of course No. 4 Georgia could have ended all of the controversy by merely upsetting LSU or perhaps even losing by just seven or fewer points. We all know now that didn’t happen, and the game wasn’t even close, with LSU blowing out the Bulldogs 37-10.

Even before the SEC championship was decided, however, a number of national college football experts were beating the Utes’ drum to move into the final Playoff spot, claiming that Utah was the more physical and well-rounded team and, therefore, more deserving than an Oklahoma team that had won three of its final four regular-season games by a combined eight points.

Meanwhile, Utah had scored 30 or more points in 10 of their 12 regular season games while leading the nation all season in total defense and allowing opponents fewer than 12 points per game.

Then came the postseason. Oklahoma held off Baylor for the second time in less than a month, defeating the seventh-ranked Bears in overtime to win its fifth consecutive Big 12 crown, and 13th in the 24-year history of the Big 12.

In the Pac-12 Championship, 16th-ranked Oregon hammered previously once-beaten and fifth-ranked Utah 37-15. Moreover, Oregon produced 432 yards of offense, almost 200 more than what the Utes had been giving up all season.

Oklahoma Sooners Football

With both Georgia and Utah losing in their conference championship games, the door was opened for Oklahoma to move up from No. 6 and punch its ticket to a third consecutive College Football Playoff and fourth in five seasons.

The Sooners were manhandled by top-ranked LSU in the Peach Bowl national semifinal last Saturday. Not a good statement from the Big 12 champions, further supporting the position of those who strongly questioned whether Oklahoma belonged on the same field with the other three Playoff teams.

The same can now be said for Utah, which delivered a second-straight December dud, losing to unranked Texas in the Alamo Bowl on New Year’s Eve.

The Longhorns, who finished the season with an 8-5 record and tied for third in the Big 12, never trailed in the game and pounded out 438 yards of offense with 231 of those coming on the ground against the nation’s No. 1 rush defense. Utah has yielded just 70 rushing yards per game to its opponents this season.

It’s sad but true that Oklahoma (12-2) gave up 692 yards and 63 points to LSU in a 35-point Playoff loss. It’s also true, though, that LSU is a far cry from Texas, which lost to four Big 12 teams this season and isn’t anywhere near the same team that lost to LSU at home by just seven points in the second week of the season.

Among the Longhorns’ four conference losses was a narrow two-point win over lowly Kansas on the same field on which they played so well earlier in the season against LSU, arguably the best team in college football this season. Kansas was just 1-8 in the Big 12 this season.

Playing poorly in one game, especially a big game like in a conference championship — can be called an accident. Doing so in two big games to end a season, though, is more of a pattern.

In its final two games of an otherwise highly successful season, Utah was outscored 75-25 and almost doubled up on offensively, 970 to 563.

Does that sound like a team that just a few weeks ago was believed to be more Playoff worthy than Oklahoma? You be the judge.