Oklahoma football: Phil Steele has OU preseason No. 1

The 2021 Phil Steele College Football Preview magazine is out and on newsstands, and if you are an Oklahoma football fan, you’re really going to like what the author has to say about the Sooners.

Full disclosure: Steele and his eponymous bible of college football have had many good things to say — and even a few critical views — about Oklahoma football over the past two decades, but this year he has outdone himself. And this is probably going to upset and anger some folks of other college football allegiances.

Let’s get right to the best of the news. Every year, Steele projects his personal preseason college football top 40, based not on how he perceives the strength of the teams to start the upcoming season, but on where he projects the teams to finish at the end of the season.

Get ready for it, Sooner faithful. Drum roll, please…

Steele projects Oklahoma to finish the season ahead of Alabama, Ohio State and Clemson and ranked No. 1. And here’s the best part, in Steele’s own words:

"“I know (Lincoln) Riley is 0-3 in the (College Football) Playoff, but this time he has a complete team and finally breaks through, giving Oklahoma their first national title since 2000.”"

Steele notes that all of last year’s playoff teams lost a number of star players to the NFL, including their starting quarterbacks.

“You know the Sooners will have an explosive offense under Lincoln Riley (especially with a veteran QB [Spencer Rattler],” he says. “They also have the best defense Riley has fielded in his five years (as head coach).”

Steele also projects that Spencer Rattler will join the quartet of Oklahoma quarterbacks since 2003 who have won college football’s most coveted individual prize: the Heisman Trophy. Oh, yeah, and another Sooner QB, Jalen Hurts, albeit for just one season, was Heisman runner-up in 2019.

There is plenty of supporting information to back up Steele’s pick of Oklahoma as the nation’s No. 1 team heading into the 2021 season.

The Phil Steele 2021 Preseason All-American Team includes QB Rattler and LB Nik Bonitto as first-team selections and DE Isaiah Thomas, DT Perrion Winfrey and K Gabe Brkic as second-team selections.

Another popular feature of the Phil Steele College Football Preview is a national ranking of the top individual units, or position groups, for the coming season. The Sooners fare extremely well in this analysis, as well.

Quarterbacks: No. 1

Running backs: No. 4 (behind Texas A&M, Georgia and Iowa State)

Receivers: No. 2 (behind Ohio State)

Offensive line: No. 1

Defensive line: No. 3 (behind Clemson and Georgia)

Linebackers: No. 9 (behind Alabama, Iowa State, Clemson, Georgia, Indiana, Wisconsin, Colorado and Auburn)

Defensive backs: No. 3 (behind Alabama and Cincinnati)

Special teams: No. 22

For those with inquiring minds, here is how Phil Steele projects the outcome of the Big 12 race this season:

1. Oklahoma

2. Iowa State

3. Texas

4. TCU

5. Oklahoma State

6. West Virginia

7.Texas Tech

8. Kansas State

9. Baylor

10. Kansas