Oklahoma football: Can Sooners win out on way to 2022 College Football Playoff?
By Chip Rouse
The media who cover the Big 12 pick the Oklahoma football Sooners to come in second in the conference standings this fall, even though both major college football polls rank OU ahead of all Big 12 teams in their preseason top-25 rankings.
There is a big uncertainty cloud hovering over the Sooners in view of the many changes the program has undergone since the end of the 2021 season. The feeling inside the program is one of confidence, not letting the past define the future and the universal hunger to reclaim ownership of the conference title, something Oklahoma has laid claim to 14 times in the 26-year history of the Big 12.
One way to assure that is to win all 12 of your regular-season games — no easy task, for sure — plus one more over a team you’ve already beaten that season for the certifiable Big 12 championship.
The Sooners have done that twice in the past two decades (2000 and 2004), but only once did it result in a national championship and a perfect season. One other time since 2000, OU successfully navigated through a perfect regular season, only to fall decisively to a three-loss Kansas State team, 35-7, in the Big 12 Championship.
There are a few college football writers who are projecting Oklahoma to run the table in the regular season, banking largely on the Sooners’ favorable schedule, which includes home games against two of their biggest challengers, Baylor and Oklahoma State.
Can the Sooners do it? Yes, they can. Will they do it? That is an entirely different question
Going undefeated through the regular-season schedule is an extremely difficult thing to do, let alone doing it through the postseason to go perfect for the full season. According to the
ESPN’s 2022 Football Power Index, only four teams (Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia and Clemson) are given better than a 10 percent chance of accomplishing that incredible feat this season.
The Sooners, by contrast, are given only a 0.9 percent chance of finishing the 2022 season undefeated. In fact, Las Vegas oddsmakers have projected the OU win total this season at just over nine games. Only three times in the last 23 years has Oklahoma won fewer than nine games in a season.
To further illustrate how truly uncommon it is to go through an entire college football season without losing a game, in 127 seasons of varsity football, Oklahoma has recorded just 13 undefeated seasons, 11 of those were so-called perfect records (meaning without any ties). That ranks the Sooners tied for seventh most all-time.