Oklahoma football: Best case, worst case for Sooners flashing forward

Lincoln Riley and his Oklahoma football team find themselves navigating uncharted waters.

Who might have guessed that four games into the 2020 season Oklahoma would sit two full games behind the league leaders? The Sooners head back to the state of Texas this weekend after a week off to take on TCU. Both teams go into the game with 1-2 records in the conference and with matching victories over the same opponent, Texas.

The Sooners and their fans are hoping the remainder of the season will be more like the 2016 Oklahoma season and not the 2014 campaign.

Few OU fans will forget the way the 2016 season began, with the Sooners losing two of their first three games — both to ranked teams, however, in Houston and Ohio State. Oklahoma rebounded from that un-Sooner-like start by running off 10 consecutive wins the remainder of the way.

The two nonconference losses ended up costing OU a potential spot in the College Football Playoff, but they did go on to capture a second straight Big 12 championship with a perfect 9-0 conference record and defeated 17th-ranked Auburn in the Sugar Bowl that season. And the 10-game win streak, interestingly, began with a win at TCU, the Sooners opponent this Saturday.

Included among those 10 consecutive victories to finish out the 2016 season were wins over five ranked teams.

The 2014 season began and ended much differently for the Sooners. They started off with four straight wins before traveling to TCU in Week 6 after a bye week. The Horned Frogs would hang a 37-33 loss on the No. 4-ranked Sooners, and that game would serve as the beginning of the end for the Oklahoma team that season.

Bob Stoops’ 2014 Sooners managed to hold on late to beat Texas the following week, but uncharacteristically lost three of their final four home games that season (to Kansas State, Baylor and Oklahoma State) to finish the regular season at 8-4 and just 5-4 in the Big 12. It didn’t get any better in the postseason. Then up-and-coming Clemson buried rudderless OU 40-6 in the Citrus Bowl.

Strangely enough, what happened at TCU served as the tipping point for both seasons.

The next couple of weeks will define the 2020 Oklahoma football season

The Sooners have reached a proverbial fork in the road as far as the strange 2020 season is concerned. Oklahoma is 1-2 in the Big 12 and cannot afford another conference loss to remain in contention for a sixth straight Big 12 crown.

What happens over the next two weeks, and most importantly what happens this weekend at TCU, will likely determine which road the Sooners take and what the rest of the season is inclined to look like.

Whoever came up with the revamped Big 12 schedule, altered from the original because of COVID-19 concerns, must have had it in for Oklahoma. The Sooners don’t play a single game at home the entire month of October. They still have road stops at TCU and Texas Tech before they play another home game.

Playing at home or away from home isn’t anywhere near the same this season due to severe attendance restrictions, but travel for away games is still more strenuous — and certainly this year more risky from a health and safety standpoint — than residing and operating in your own home environment.

The Sooners have played extremely well on the road in recent seasons. They have won 24 of their last 26 true road games and are 13-2 under Lincoln Riley. One of those two losses, though, was this season at Iowa State.

The best case going forward is that Oklahoma takes care of business at TCU this weekend and again at Texas Tech the following weekend. The schedule sets up much more favorably over the final four regular-season contests.

To begin with, as stated earlier,, the Sooners play three of the four at home. The more difficult of the final four games will be Oklahoma State, and that game is in Norman this year.

Assuming OU can uphold its probable favored status in home games against Kansas and Baylor, the last hurdle the Sooners must get over is at West Virginia, against whom OU is 8-0 in the Big 12 era and 4-0 in road games at West Virginia.

If all of this were to come about as outlined, Oklahoma would still need some head-to-head help and chaos from the rest of the conference, but the chances would be very good that the Sooners would make it into the Big 12 championship, and then they would be back in control of their own destiny.

That’s the glass half-full perspective, and the outcome every Sooner fan would prefer.

But there are always two sides to every story. For the benefit of the sky-is-falling crowd, here’s an alternative outcome if the Sooners choose the wrong route to the rest of the season.

Lose either of the next two games — all Oklahoma will have left to play for is Sooner pride and next season. Either way, the Sooners would return home at the beginning of November with a losing conference record for the first time since John Blake was coaching the team in the late 1990s.

In this scenario, the Sooners would likely lose to a better Oklahoma State team and could also struggle at West Virginia. I feel pretty confident OU will hold serve at home over Kansas and Baylor.

So at worst case — and for right now, let’s bury the thought — Oklahoma could end the season with a record of 4-6 and 3-6 in the Big 12. That would be something almost unfathomable for a team that began the season ranked No. 3 in the country.

That would be the worst-case outcome, but should Oklahoma lose one of the next two games (at TCU and Texas Tech) the more probable outcome for the final four games would be OU winning three of the four, which would give the Sooners an overall record of 6-4, 5-4 in the Big 12, and a postseason berth in an inconsequential bowl.

Looking at it from these different perspectives, I’d say Oklahoma definitely has a lot to play for over the next six games and should take the high road…one stop at a time.