Oklahoma football: Ready or not…here we come

Oklahoma football has a week off to prepare for the game that will define or derail its 2020 Big 12 championship hopes.

The Sooners are off until Nov. 21, when they will host Oklahoma State and Bedlam at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.

There are two ways to look at the Sooners’ third bye week in the abbreviated 2020 schedule:

• It gives the Sooners an extra week to get ready for the rivalry game with 14th-ranked Oklahoma State as well as extra time to get some injured players back to health.
• It also creates an additional week of COVID risk at a time when virus exposure is on the rise again in college football, as well as in society as a whole. The Sooners are riding a four-game winning streak. You don’t want the extra week off to potentially slow down that momentum.

Either way, it shapes up as both Oklahoma’s biggest challenge and biggest opportunity of the season. The stakes are huge, as they have been for many of the recent Bedlam series matchups.

It is a must win for the Sooners (5-2, 4-2) if the five-time defending Big 12 champions are to have any hope of making it to Arlington, Texas, on Dec. 19 and playing for a sixth consecutive conference crown and 14th overall.

Unlike the Sooners, Oklahoma State (5-1, 4-1) can afford to lose in Bedlam and still secure a spot in the conference championship game.

If you are one of the three remaining teams on Oklahoma’s 2020 schedule, you probably aren’t looking forward to facing the Sooners, and two of those games, Oklahoma State and Baylor, are home games for OU. In between, Lincoln Riley’s crew has a road trip to West Virginia.

On the other end of the spectrum, the teams that played OU early in the season, particularly Iowa State and Kansas State should be happy that they caught the Sooners when they did.

Oklahoma Sooners Football

Oklahoma is playing its best ball of the season and at just the right time. Unfortunately, the Sooners are still behind the eight ball as far as contending for a conference title because of the two losses they suffered to K-State and Iowa State in back-to-back weekends at the beginning of 2020 Big 12 play.

Since then, the Sooners have reeled off consecutive wins over Texas, TCU, Texas Tech and Kansas and averaged 52.5 points during that stretch, which is the best in the country over the last month. As a result, Oklahoma is right back in title contention, one full game back of Iowa State and a half-game behind Oklahoma State.

Kansas State and Texas are tied with the Sooners, all with 4-2 conference records. The Wildcats own the tiebreaker over Oklahoma, but they still have games with Iowa State and Texas remaining. Should OU and Texas end up with identical records at or near the top of the Big 12 standings, the Sooners would get the nod by virtue of winning this year’s Red River rivalry game.

The Sooners are playing strong complementary football right now. While they are averaging 52.5 points on offense in the last four games, the defense is allowing just 24.0. Overall, Oklahoma ranks in the top 15 in the country in scoring offense (5th), passing offense (8th) and total offense (11th) and is 27th in red-zone offense.

While the OU offense is performing at the same high level it has all four season Riley has been head coach, this season the Sooner defense is pulling more of its weight than at any time Riley has been at Oklahoma. The Sooners rank in the top 30 in multiple defensive categories. Such a statement would have been unheard just two seasons ago.

Oklahoma ranks 27th nationally in total defense, 10th in rushing defense, 7th in team sacks, 11th in third-down conversion defense and tied for 16th in tackles for loss.

If this isn’t enough to strike fear in the hearts and minds of the remaining teams on the OU schedule, as well as those teams vying for one of the two spots in the Big 12 championship game, the Sooners have just returned to action their best running back, Rhamondre Stevenson, and best defensive player, defensive end Ronnie Perkins.

Both players missed the first five games of the season because of a suspension. In his two games back, Stevenson has averaged 8.0 yards per carry, 96 yards per game and has five rushing touchdowns. He also has six catches for 73 receiving yards.

Perkins has been a major disruptive force on defense in his two games since returning. He’s collected six tackles, 3.5 for a loss, and 1.5 sacks and is just getting warmed up.

If the Sooners are able to take care of business against Oklahoma State on Nov. 21 (OU has won 15 of the last 17 meetings with its in-state rival) — and the Cowboys seemingly have hit a road bump in their last two games — and win out at West Virginia and in the home finale with Baylor, it is highly likely that Oklahoma will earn a spot in the Big 12 Championship.

A lot of “ifs” with a trio of games remaining, but the key to it all as far as the Sooners are concerned — not to mention the other teams in contention — is for Oklahoma to defeat Oklahoma State.

That’s one gigantic if, but the Sooners arguably are playing the best of any team in the conference at this stage of the season, and if they are able to add a victory in Bedlam to the win column, things will be looking real peachy for the Crimson and Cream.