Oklahoma football: ESPN chimes in with its 2022 preseason ranking for OU

If you are a countdown fanatic as well as a “can’t wait” type when it comes to Oklahoma football, you’ll be happy to know it’s now under 50 days before the new-look Sooners tee it up and kick off the 2022 college season.

We may be in the so-called dead period insofar as college and pro football news, but OU football never really leaves the news, it just recycles through it depending on the time of year.

Immediately after the College Football Playoff championship game, we immediately begin seeing “way-too-early” forecasts for the next season as well as the second wave of national recruiting signings. Come March, there is spring practice, capped off with the annual spring game. After that, all the attention turns to the annual NFL player draft.

When you get right down to it, though, the heart and lifeblood of college football rests in the recruiting cycle, which is a continual process that doesn’t really have an offseason.

We’re now at the time on the calendar, however, when there isn’t much college football news to report, but that’s also when pundits and sports talk show hosts begin filling the void with conference projections, Heisman and national award candidates and, of course, national top-25 lists.

In the coming weeks, all leading up to the official kickoff of the 2022 college football season we will start seeing a steady trickle of preseason top-25 rankings. We will track that process, specifically as it relates to Oklahoma’s positioning and other Big 12 teams, as the preseason rankings come out in the various preview publications, in social media and from other national news sources.

We began this 2022 tracking process a couple of weeks ago. Here is the latest update, which now includes the preseason top-25 rankings put out by the ESPN college football staff. Still ahead in the coming weeks are the highly anticipated preseason top-25 rankings from Sports Illustrated, Associated Press and the Coaches Poll.

If you were to average the seven preseason rankings for Oklahoma from the media outlets and preview magazines below, the Sooners average out at No. 10.

Athlon Sports

1. Alabama, 2. Ohio State, 3. Georgia, 4. Clemson, 11. Baylor, 13. Oklahoma, 17. Oklahoma State

CBS Sports

1. Georgia, 2, Alabama, 3, Michigan, 4. Cincinnati, 5. Baylor, 7. Oklahoma State, 10. Oklahoma

Lindy’s Sports

1. Alabama, 2. Ohio State, 3. Georgia, 4. Clemson, 9. Oklahoma State, 10, Oklahoma, 12. Baylor, 25. Texas

Phil Steele Preseason Top 25

1. Alabama, 2. Ohio State, 3. Georgia, 4. Clemson, 8. Oklahoma

Sporting News

1. Alabama, 2. Ohio State, 3. Georgia, 4. Clemson, 10. Baylor, 11. Oklahoma, 12. Oklahoma State, 25. Texas

247Sports

1. Alabama, 2. Ohio State, 3. Georgia, 4. Texas A&M, 10. Oklahoma, 16 tie. Texas, 25. Oklahoma State

ESPN (Football Power Index)

1. Alabama, 2. Ohio State, 3. Georgia, 4. Clemson, 5. Notre Dame, 6. Michigan, 7. Texas, 8. Oklahoma, 14. Oklahoma State, 22. Baylor