Oklahoma football: Sporting News has Sooners making 4th straight Playoff
By Chip Rouse
In the six years of the College Football Playoff format, the Oklahoma football team has made four appearances and three straight under Lincoln Riley?
light. Related Story. Can Sooners dispel enough concerns to legitimize a 2020 national title run?
Can the Sooners make it four for four for their head coach?
It’s time again to spin the wheel and find out which four teams will make it into the 2020 College Football Playoff. But is it really necessary? The same teams seem to get there — or at least are in contention right down to Selection Sunday — every year, and that tends to take all the fun out of it, Unless, of course, you are an Oklahoma Sooner fan.
Only once in its four trips to the Playoff has Oklahoma been solidly in before the final four teams were revealed to the public. That was in 2017, when the Sooners were a fairly solid two seed when the CFP selection committee rendered its final vote. The last two years, Oklahoma has somehow managed to find its way into the Playoff despite having several teams ahead of it heading into the final weekend of the regular season and the conference championships
The Sooners won the Big 12 championship the last two years — in 2018 over Texas and last season over Baylor. That was priority one. In addition to that, the Sooners needed some help in the form of upsets involving the teams immediately ahead of them. That help came in both seasons, opening the door for Oklahoma to waltz in and claim the final Playoff spot.
Sooner Magic at its finest.
But can the Crimson and Cream tempt fate again in 2020 and make it to the college football version of the college basketball’s Final Four for a fourth successive season? The editors of Sporting News are voting yes. The bigger question, though, might be: Can Riley and the Sooners win a Playoff game? They are 0-4 in that department presently.
The Oklahoma football team has been to 4 of the 6 College Football Playoffs.
Sporting News recently came out with the projected matchup for all 44 postseason bowl games involving FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) teams in the upcoming season, including the New Year’s Six bowl projections (Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl and the two national semifinal Playoff games) and the national championship game.
Despite having Oklahoma at No. 7 in its college football 2020 preseason top 25, Sporting News has the Sooners joining several other familiar faces — Clemson, Alabama and Ohio State in the College Football Playoff for the upcoming season.
Those four schools have made up 17 of the 24 Playoff appearances in the six years since the introduction of that format, beginning with the 2014 season, to determine the college football national champion.
Everything is certain to change between now and the first weekend in December, but it is good to know that the Sooners are starting out on the high ground insofar as 2020 national title contenders are concerned.