Sometime close to midnight on Wednesday, the 2020 Oklahoma football season comes to an end.
It comes just one day before the end of an unprecedented year for most everyone on the planet.
Unlike many teams, who were faced with postponements and cancellations because of COVID-19 issues, Oklahoma was able to play nine of its 10 regularly scheduled games, plus one more for the Big 12 championship.
With vaccines now approved and a distribution plan in process, along with 10-month’s cumulative knowledge about how to deal with the virus, everyone is hopeful that life as we knew it will begin to return to some normalcy by the spring of 2021.
So what’s next for Lincoln Riley and the Sooners as they redirect their focus and attention to the 2021 edition of Oklahoma football?
The first thing you need to understand is that the college football season never really ends, it merely transitions into different activities, all aimed at two universal goals:
- Putting the best team you can on the field each and every year, and
- Performing, as a team, at the highest level of preparation and execution.
Those are, indeed, lofty goals, but for teams with the longtime success of an Oklahoma, it becomes more of an expectation than a wishful achievement.
As difficult as it is to play for the national championship — something the Sooners have done eight times in the BCS and College Football Playoff eras — Oklahoma players, coaches and fans would consider 2020 a less than successful season by Sooner standards. Yes, OU won eight games and won a sixth consecutive conference championship and a 14th Big 12 title overall.
Preparations for the 2021 Oklahoma football season are already underway
Because they lost two conference games, though, and despite the fact they arguably were playing as well as anybody in the country, Oklahoma fell short in its bid to return to the College Football Playoff for a fourth straight season and five times overall in the eight-year history of the CFP format.
The Sooners began the season as the No. 3-ranked team and a preseason favorite to be one of the four Playoff teams, assuming at the time that there would be a national champion crowned in 2020? Three weeks into the season, Oklahoma fell out of the top-25 rankings after losing two of its first three games.
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We all know the about the journey that began with OU’s win over Texas the second weekend in October. Oklahoma fought its way back into the top-10 and ended up at No. 6 in the final College Football Playoff rankings. That in itself represented a huge turnaround. Again, however, the Sooners and their fans wanted more.
O.K., reality fell a little short of expectations in 2020, but those same expectations will be there in 2021 The good news is, looking ahead, next season is shaping up the be even brighter for the Sooners than it did coming into the 2020 season.
This is a young Oklahoma team overall, and the Sooners have plenty of talent coming back at the skill positions and an incoming recruiting class that is likely to be another top-10 class. Believe it or not, there could even be a quarterback battle between two former No. 1 quarterback recruits (Spencer Rattler, the incumbent, and the top QB in the 2021 class, Caleb Williams). What a nice problem to have.
We’ll be writing and commenting more on all of that over the next couple of months.
The next thing on the agenda for Lincoln Riley and his coaches is to finalize the 2021 recruiting class. National Signing Day Part II takes place in early February. Between now and then, the Sooners will be working hard to sign several uncommitted top prospects, filling out the ’21 class that currently stands at 16 and includes two five-star prospects (QB Williams and WR Mario Williams) and nine four-stars.
Individuals will be working out on their own during the first couple of months of the new year in preparation for the start of spring practice. This will include early enrollees from the 2021 recruiting class. During that time, we will get typical cascade of way-too-early top-25 projections for next season.
I would be highly surprised if Oklahoma is not in the top-five when all the preview magazines start rolling out next spring.
Sometime over the next month we will learn which seniors, if any, will take advantage of the extra year of eligibility that was granted by the NCAA because of the COVID-altered 2020 season.
Chief among them is running back Rhamondre Stephenson, who has rushed for close to 500 yards in just five games after being suspended for the first five games as one of three Sooners who failed a drug test before last season’s College Football Playoff.
There are also reports that Kennedy Brooks, OU’s best returning running back coming into the 2020 season, will return to the team for the 2021 season after opting out this season. That would be huge news for OU. Brooks rushed for over 1,000 yards in both 2018 and 2019 and has averaged 7.5 yards per carry in his college career.
If either Stephenson or Brooks returns in 2021 — or, ideally, both — you can forget about any running back issues for next season.
Don’t be surprised, either, if Oklahoma signs another RB in its 2021 class and/or lands one through the transfer portal for more depth.
By the time spring practice and the spring game roll around, we should have a pretty good idea of what this team is going to look like when it takes the field for the 2021 season opener on Sept. 4 at Tulane. The Sooners also renew their longtime rivalry with Nebraska next season. The two former conference foes will play Sept. 18 in Norman.
There is much to get done between now and next September, however. The games may stop, but the planning and preparation goes on year-round.