Oklahoma football: Sooners still have 3 primary goals in play
By Chip Rouse
The path to the College Football Playoff may be gone, but Oklahoma football has three primary season goals still in its sights.
On Tuesday night, the initial College Football Playoff rankings for the 2020 season will be revealed. In past Playoff years — of which there have been only six — Sooner fans would be looking forward to this major milestone of the college season with much anticipation.
In four of the six seasons the CFP format has been in place, Oklahoma has been ranked in the top 10 in the initial Playoff rankings. In each of those seasons (2015, 2017, 2018 and 2019), the Sooners made the College Football Playoff, including last season, when they held down the No. 9 spot when the initial rankings were revealed.
Oklahoma all but played itself out of the 2020 College Football Playoff picture before the season had barely begun, losing two of its first three games. At that point it wasn’t just OU’s Playoff hopes that were lost, but their goal of playing for a sixth straight Big 12 championship was also in serious jeopardy.
Since those surprising back-to-back conference losses, however, the Sooners have rebounded with five consecutive wins, and by an average score of 50.2 to 21.8. What’s more, they’ve seemingly gotten better with every game, which is where championship-level teams want to be at this time of year.
Oklahoma football still has big postseason goals still in its sights
It’s probably too much, too late for Oklahoma as far as its chances of making yet another unprecedented late-season run to a top-four national seeding, but the way the Sooners are playing now, they not only are in excellent position to make the Big 12 Championship, but are the betting choice to win it all for the 14th time in the 25-year Big 12 era.
There shouldn’t be much of a surprise in the top four spots, when the first CFP rankings of the season are released. Alabama, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Clemson should have those spots fairly well locked down at this time. After that, however, it should get real interesting.
Oklahoma Sooners Football
One thing to keep in mind is that the College Football Playoff seedings do not always follow the Associated Press media poll or Coaches Poll rankings.
The Sooners are currently No. 14 in those two polls. Based on its impressive performance in recent weeks, it wouldn’t be that surprising to see Oklahoma come in as high as No. 12 in the initial CFP standings, with the likelihood of climbing even higher if the Sooners are able to win out the rest of the way.
The widespread assumption is that a two-loss Big 12 champion is not going to be in the Playoff conversation. That’s probably true, but you can almost be guaranteed that a two-loss Big 12 team will be playing on one of the New Year’s Six bowls.
If that team is Oklahoma, the Cotton Bowl ( at the Jerry Dome, not the traditional Cotton Bowl venue) on Dec. 30 will be where the Sooners are headed. The second-place Big 12 team will go to the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio; the third-place Big 12 team will earn the bid to play in the Cheez-It Bowl in Orlando, and the fourth-place team will go to Houston to play in the Texas Bowl.
By defeating Oklahoma State on Saturday, the Sooners achieved another one of their season goals: defeating their two major rivals, Texas and Oklahoma State. OU beat Texas 53-45 in four overtimes earlier in the season. The Texas win kicked off the Sooners’ current five-game winning streak.
A fourth season goal — winning the Red River battle with all four Texas-based Big 12 teams (Texas, TCU, Texas Tech and Baylor) — will be achieved if the Sooners defeat Baylor in the regular-season finale.
The way things look right now, you can count this as another successful Oklahoma football season, despite not having the opportunity for a fifth College Football Playoff appearance in seven seasons.
Still much to be thankful for in a year unlike any other.