Oklahoma football: OU No. 2 in updated USA Today 2021 college football Top 25
By Chip Rouse
The Oklahoma football bandwagon is gaining momentum as the 2021 college football season draws closer.
Related Story. Early 2021 projections have Sooners in high company. light
We’re at the time on the calendar when the college football pundits and preview magazines start becoming more serious about their projections for the upcoming season. While there aren’t expected to be major shifts at the top in the way-too-early rankings looking ahead to the 2021 season, there are some.
And Oklahoma is showing up as a beneficiary of some of the change in earlier thinking.
USA Today has revised its earlier top-25 projections made within days of Alabama winning the 2020 national championship. It has become increasingly popular for all the major sports news outlets to forecast the shuffling of chairs among the top teams looking ahead to the next season while the ink is still wet on the just-ended college season.
Most of the top-25 projections that came out in January placed Oklahoma anywhere from No. 2 to No. 5 in the way-too-early rankings for 2021.
USA Today’s earlier top-25 ranking had the Sooners at No. 3 behind Alabama and Georgia, but ahead of Clemson and Ohio State. That was in January. Now, four months later, with spring practice schedules completed and the 2021 recruiting classes in final form, USA Today has updated its previous forecast with a look at the 2021 season from a closer distance.
Oklahoma has moved to No. 2, replacing Georgia, in the USA Today post-spring 2021 Top-25 rankings. Overall, there was a slight adjustment among six of the top 10 teams in the USA Today post-spring rankings.
What’s changed for the Sooners that is earning them greater respect now than before? Chalk it up to a great offense that should be even better with a more confident and wiser Spencer Rattler at quarterback along with several key skill-position additions and a defense that has been transformed from a liability to a team strength.
USA Today’s post-spring Top 25 contains three other Big 12 teams besides the Sooners: Iowa State remained No. 6, Oklahoma State moved up two spots, from No. 22 to No. 20, passing Texas in the process, which dropped from 20th to 22nd.
Oklahoma has always been a very good team under offensive mastermind Lincoln Riley. This coming season, get ready to see a scary good Oklahoma team that is now ready to take the next step.