Stormin in Norman
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Oklahoma football: USA Today Sports ranks 2022 Sooners No. 1 in Big 12

By Chip Rouse

NORMAN, OK - NOVEMBER 20: The Oklahoma Sooners flag is waved from the field after a touchdown against the Iowa State Cyclones in the first quarter at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on November 20, 2021 in Norman, Oklahoma. The Sooners won 28-21. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)
NORMAN, OK - NOVEMBER 20: The Oklahoma Sooners flag is waved from the field after a touchdown against the Iowa State Cyclones in the first quarter at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on November 20, 2021 in Norman, Oklahoma. The Sooners won 28-21. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images) /
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It’s an all-new Oklahoma football regime, which would seem to some to set the almighty Sooners back a notch or two as it goes through a period of adjustment. The college football staff at USA Today Sports isn’t buying that argument.

A year ago, the Sooners missed out on the Big 12 championship game for the first time in five seasons and did not take home the conference championship trophy for the first time in seven straight seasons.

Oklahoma begins anew this season with a new head coach and coaching staff and without several key players who left the program following the departure of Lincoln Riley to USC. Despite all the changes in Norman, the needle is beginning to point more and more the Sooners’ way as the team to beat in the Big 12 in the coming 2022 season.

USA Today is the third sports news outlet to position Oklahoma at the top of the Big 12 spring power rankings in recent days. ESPN and College Football News did so previously.

According to USA Today Sports, Oklahoma. Oklahoma State and Baylor appear to be the top three teams again, with spring practice wrapping up and four months away from the kickoff of the 2022 college football season.

Given all the offseason hype about how Texas, with several key transfer additions and an outstanding recruiting class coming in, should be much better in Steve Sarkisian’s second season, it is surprising to see the Longhorns at No. 5 behind Kansas State. Another team that stands out in the USA Today Big 12 preseason rankings is Iowa State, projected seventh.

You can read the full article by USA Today Sports staff writer Erick Smith here.

Here, in part, is what Smith writes about OU looking ahead to the fall college football season:

"“Applying conventional wisdom, there would be an expectation that the Sooners would take a step back after losing their coach and several players to the transfer portal…“(New head coach Brent) Venables, who was the architect of Clemson’s title-winning defenses, knows how to get that unit performing. This is the team to beat, though the race won’t be easy.”"

It will be familiar territory for the Sooners, who within the next two years will be setting up camp in the power-laden SEC. But they aren’t just going to hand the trophy to Oklahoma, which would be OU’s 15th championship in 27 seasons under the Big 12 banner. The Sooners are still going to have to prove it on the field, not just on paper.

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