Oklahoma softball: Are Sooners really the best team in the country?

The Oklahoma softball team is having a phenomenal season. There is a strong argument to be made that this is the best Sooner softball team of all-time.

And there have been some really good ones.

The Sooners began the 2021 season as the No. 4 team in the country. By the beginning of March and with 12 straight victories to start the season, Oklahoma had taken over the No. 1 ranking, and the Sooner have remained in the top spot ever since.

Oklahoma opened up the season with 33 consecutive wins — make that 40 in a row if you consider the seven consecutive games they won a year earlier before the 2020 season was cancelled in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both streaks ended on April 20 in the first game of a doubleheader against then No. 21 Georgia.

The Sooners rebounded quickly, however, bouncing back in the second game at Georgia with a 12-3 run-rule victory in five innings.

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Despite the fantastic season start and the No. 1 ranking that the Sooners have held on to for more than two months, there are some among the nation’s punditry who challenge the No. i ranking of Patty Gasso’s Oklahoma softball team and believe the Sooners are overrated.

The folks who put together the RPI rankings for college softball apparently don’t believe OU’s No, 1 ranking, either.

As of May 2, there are six teams ahead of the Sooners in the Division I softball RPI — Alabama, UCLA, Florida, LSU, Arkansas and Florida State — and four of them are out of the SEC.

There are still games to be played, but Oklahoma is on the cusp of one of the most historic seasons in the history of Sooner softball, if not in college softball.

With just four more games in the 2021 regular season, the Lady Sooners face arguably their toughest challenge of the year so far when they go up against No. 9-ranked Oklahoma State in a Bedlam softball showdown on the road in Stillwater this weekend.

Both teams have won 39 games overall this season and both have 14 wins in the Big 12. The top-ranked Sooners have lost just once in 40 games. Oklahoma State has suffered just six losses this season.

Perhaps this time next week, Oklahoma will have shown enough to counter the arguments that the Sooners haven’t played a difficult enough schedule, which seems to be the primary concern of those who challenge OU’s claim to the top spot and place among the greatest of all time.

The best way for Oklahoma to respond to any and all skeptics out there is to keep on winning and everything else will take care of itself.

The only other team that could possibly be in the same conversation with Oklahoma about being the best team in the nation this season is UCLA. The Bruins, ranked No. 2 behind the Sooners, are the reigning national  champions, having defeated Oklahoma in the championship final of the 2019 Women’s College World Series.

UCLA has a 32-3 record with 10 more games scheduled in the regular season, including a four game series at No. 11 Arizona. The Bruins have played three ranked teams this season — No. 5 Washington, No. 8 Arizona State and No. 10 Oregon. They are 10-2 in those games.

The Sooners have also played three ranked teams so far — No. 12 Texas, No. 15 Missouri and No. 18 Georgia — and are 6-1 against ranked opponents, with No. 9 Oklahoma State coming up this weekend. OU also plays Wichita State this week, which was No. 23 a week ago, but dropped out of the top-25 this week.

UCLA is outscoring its opponents by an average score of 7 to 1. The Sooners are just outscoring their opponents, they’re destroying them, winning by an average score of 12 to 1. OU leads the country in shutout wins (21), and 29 of their 39 wins have failed to go the full seven innings because of the run rule.

UCLA, with All-American Rachel Garcia, has a slight edge in pitching, but that advantage is very marginal. The Bruins rank third nationally in staff ERA (1.21), but Oklahoma is seventh (1.45).

There is no comparison with Oklahoma offensively. The Sooners can hurt you one through nine in the lineup, which gives opponents no easy outs, Statistics don’t lie, and the Oklahoma leads all of college softball in every major offensive category:

• .430 batting average (UCLA ranks 18th at .327)
• 463 runs (UCLA is 18th with 232)
• 114 home runs (UCLA is 14th with 52)
• .516 on-base percentage (UCLA ranks 14th at .412)
• .824 slugging percentage (UCLA is 10th at .580).

OU also ranks third in fielding, with a .988 percentage and a nation-best 10 errors (for teams with at least 10 games).

What it all boils down to is, pitching appears to be Oklahoma’s weak link, and the irony of that is the Sooners are blessed with one of the best pitching staffs in college softball. The 21 shutouts in 40 games is a strong testament to that

So, good luck picking your poison against this Sooner softball team.

If Oklahoma makes it through this week unscathed, there should be no question in anyone’s mind who the best team in the country is heading into the postseason.

The Sooners have made 13 trips to the Women’s College World Series, all since 2000 and all under head coach Patty Gasso, and they’ve been the lone team standing at the end four times.

This OU team has been on a mission since the season opener in early February to bring home a fifth national championship, and they just might do it.