Oklahoma football: ESPN has only one Sooner among CFB’s ‘Best 50’

According to ESPN, Oklahoma football is a top team lacking in superstar talent.

The writers who make up what ESPN describes as its college football corner have come out with a ranking of the best 50 players in college football, 2020 edition. They’ve approached the annual exercise of “calculating, compiling and constructing” ESPN’s college football player rankings as if it is a normal year, with all hands — er, players — on deck.

Even though 28 teams from two Power Five conferences and some other mid-major leagues have elected not to play football in the fall because of COVID-19 concerns, ESPN has turned a blind eye to that reality and included the players from all 130 FBS teams in its 2020 player rankings.

After all, how can you put out a list of the 50 players you consider to be very best that college football has to offer in 2020 — whether they play in the fall, spring or not at all — and not include players from two major conferences? That question is actually rhetorical. You can’t.

O.K., now that we have that piece of business out of the way, let me get to the real reason for this article. I have a beef to pick with the ESPN ranking. Only one Oklahoma Sooner, junior offensive lineman Creed Humphrey — appears among the 50 best college players who made the ESPN ranking for 2020.

Humphrey, a consensus Preseason All-American, rightly deserves to be on the list, but I was frankly surprised not to see the names of WR Charleston Rambo, DE Ronnie Perkins, K Gabe Brkic and even QB Spencer Rattler, or any combination thereof, on the list.

OU junior running back Kennedy Brooks would have made the ranking for sure, but he has opted out of the 2020 season and is likely preparing to enter next spring’s NFL Draft. But that still leaves some pretty special talent on the Sooner roster for this season.

Rambo is the leading returning receiver (second on the team in receptions last year) on the offense that ranked third-best in college football last season. Perkins is on the 2020 watch list for both the Bednarik Award and Bronko Nagurski Trophy, two national awards that recognize the best defensive player in college football, and has been named Preseason First-Team All-Big 12.

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All Brkic did last season is convert on all 17 of his field-goal tries last season and 53 of 53 extra points. He is on the Lou Groza Award preseason watch list and is a Sporting News Preseason All-American.

That brings us to Rattler. Granted, the redshirt freshman has only thrown 11 passes in his collegiate career so far, but that was because the former five-star prospect and No, 1 quarterback in the 2019 national recruiting class was behind Heisman runner-up Jalen Hurts a year ago. Several Las Vegas handicappers are giving Rattler the second-best odds to win the Heisman Trophy this season — and why not? — after all, he is a quarterback at Oklahoma.

How can you be given those kind of Heisman odds as the next starting quarterback at Oklahoma and have the kind of expectations that he possesses and not be considered one of the 50 best college football players? O.K., I get it, it is because he hasn’t yet lived up to all the hype that has preceded his opportunity as a full-time starter.

I’ll go as far as to say, I may understand why there is a noticeable absence of Oklahoma players in the ESPN Top-50 ranking, but I can’t say I appreciate or agree with it.

Oklahoma is the only team among the teams ranked in the top seven of both major preseason national polls that has fewer than two players in the ESPN ranking. Meanwhile, six Alabama players are recognized, four from Ohio State and three each from LSU and Texas. Wake Forest even has two player listed among the 50 best, according to ESPN.

Truth be told, the Sooners have plenty of talent, especially on the offensive side of the ball, but it is largely untapped talent that is just now getting its real opportunity to shine.

It’s a pretty good bet that if Oklahoma lives up to its preseason expectations as a top-10 team and perennial national championship contender, we’ll see more Sooners on this type of a ranking a year from now, and it won’t be just the so-called skill positions, either.