Oklahoma football: Another national source has OU making football’s Final Four
By Chip Rouse
The greatest poetic justice that could come from the 2022 Oklahoma football season — especially in the aftermath of the coaching change from Lincoln Riley to Brent Venables — would be for the Sooners to make a return trip to the College Football Playoff.
Most experts see that as a great improbability. But not all. Earlier this month, Jerry Palm of CBS Sports projected that Oklahoma would join front-runners Alabama, Ohio State and Georgia in this year’s College Football Playoff.
Now, another national source has chimed in in support of the Sooners garnering the fourth playoff spot in front of a host of potential national contenders this season.
In an article posted yesterday by Erick Smith of USA Today, projected that Oklahoma would win the highly competitive Big 12 in the 2022 season and, by doing so, top out over the likes of new head coach Brent Venables’ former team, Clemson, Notre Dame, Texas A&M and Utah.
More. The case for and against Oklahoma making the 2022 College Football Playoff. light
"“While the Sooners had a coaching change and lost prominent players to the NFL and the transfer portal, they made several key additions, including QB Dillon Gabriel and some important defenders,” Smith writes.“The arrival of Brent Venables as Lincoln Riley’s replacement should help the defense get to a level where OU regains the Big 12 title and has the best chance of making the (playoff) field.”"
The case for Oklahoma has been building throughout the offseason. The closer we have come to the actual kickoff to the 2022 season, favoritism has slowly been building toward the Sooners and their potential to have another 11- or 12-win season in 2022. For one thing, OU has a highly favorable schedule with home games against three of their toughest opponents: Baylor, Oklahoma State and Kansas State.
The tipping stone in all of this is the Big 12 Championship. For the Sooners to have any chance of returning for a fifth playoff appearance (the only Big 12 team to ever appear in the CFP), they have to win the Big 12, which would be for a seventh time in the last eight seasons and 15 league titles overall
As for the rest of the Big 12, Smith projects that Baylor and Texas A&M will play in the New Year’s Six Sugar Bowl, Oklahoma State and UCLA in the Alamo Bowl, Kansas State and North Carolina State in the Cheez-It Bowl, TCU and Auburn in the Texas Bowl, Texas and Kentucky in the Liberty Bowl, Iowa State and Minnesota in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl and West Virginia and Washington State in the First Responder Bowl.