Oklahoma football: ESPN gives OU best chance to win Big 12

According to ESPN’s Football Power Index, Oklahoma football has the best chance of taking home the Big 12 Championship trophy.

That was the way it was to start the sideways 2020 season, but after the Sooners proceeded to lose two its first two Big 12 games, they quickly fell from favor as a conference contender.

At that point, everyone was counting Oklahoma out. Everyone that is except Lincoln Riley and the Sooner players. They knew they were down — after all, the chances of getting to the Big 12 Championship with two losses, let alone running the table in the remaining seven games, were slim to none — but they were not out and not about to stop fighting.

Since losing to Iowa State on Oct. 3, the Sooners have run off four consecutive wins, and they’ve done so in impressive fashion. Next up is Oklahoma State, a week from now. A win over the 14th-ranked Cowboys would put OU in excellent position to play for the conference championship for a sixth consecutive season and 15th time in the Big 12 era.

The week of Oct. 5, the ESPN FPI had all but written off the Sooners’ chances of making it to the College Football Playoff and projected three other Big 12 teams — Oklahoma State, Iowa State and Texas — with a greater chance of winning the league title than Oklahoma.

This week, the FPI is back on the OU bandwagon, giving the Sooners a 37.5 percent chance of winning the Big 12 and fulfilling their Big 12 Preseason Poll ranking as the conference favorite, as they have been in eight of the past 10 preseason polls. Texas has the next best odds, according to the FPI, at 28.5 percent, followed by Oklahoma State (16.7) and Iowa State (13.8).