Oklahoma football: Sooners move back up, to No. 3 in rankings
By Chip Rouse
After falling two spots in the national rankings, from No. 2 to No. 4, in the opening week of the 2021 college football season, the Oklahoma football Sooners are on the way back up after No, 3 Ohio State’s loss to Oregon.
The Sooners replaced the Buckeyes in the No. 3 spot in both the Associated Press Top 25 and the Coaches Poll for Week 3. Alabama retains its No. 1 spot, receiving all but one first-place vote in both polls.
Ohio State dropped eight spots, to No. 11 in the Coaches Poll, and six spots, to No. 9 in the AP poll.
Georgia remains No.2. Oregon is the new No. 4 team, followed by Iowa and Clemson in the AP poll and Texas A&M and Clemson in the Coaches Poll.
Iowa State, one of three Big 12 teams that are ranked this week, dropped four spots in both polls, from 10th to 14th. Texas, ranked 15th a week ago, fell out of the top 25 in both polls after suffering a 40-21 defeat at unranked Arkansas.
Oklahoma State returned to No. 22 in the Coaches Poll, where they began the 2021 season, after dropping one spot following Week 1. The two biggest upward movers this week were Oregon in the AP poll (plus-eight) and Oregon (plus-seven) and Virginia Tech in the Coaches Poll (plus-six).
Although there is a long way to go this season, Oklahoma has been ranked in the top five in the AP Top 25 for a total of 421 weeks since the first AP rankings were published in 1936. That iis second to only Alabama (431). The Sooners also have finished somewhere in the top 25 19 times in the last 21 seasons.