Oklahoma football: Not everyone is jumping on the 2022 Sooner Schooner band wagon
By Chip Rouse
In the interest of full disclosure, we would be foolish to suggest that every college expert is onboard with the top-10 ranking voted upon the Oklahoma football program this preseason.
The Sooners have been getting a lot of positive press the past couple of months as the Brent Venables era of the Oklahoma football continues to take shape and get set to make its official debut on Saturday as the Sooners host UTEP.
Oklahoma is ranked No. 9 in both of the preseason Associated Press and Coaches Polls. And there have even been a couple of national experts (Jerry Palm of CBS Sports and Erick Smith of USA Today) have projected the Sooners to make it into this season’s College Football Playoff.
But, as reporters like to say, there are two sides to every story, and college football writer David Ubben of The Athletic has a different take of how the 2022 season will go for Oklahoma.
In a recent article about “Which Top 10 Teams Could Crash,” Ubben suggested that Clemson and Oklahoma had the highest probability of underachieving and falling outside of the country’s top-25 teams.
About the Sooners, Ubben writes:
"“The Sooners have a lot of moving parts and have to replace a lot of offseason losses. Dillon Gabriel should have a good season, but Caleb Williams is a better player with a bigger upside, and the Sooners are replacing their top four receivers and 60 percent of their stars on defense.“I suspect the Sooners may take (the road trip to Nebraska) too lightly and a seven- or eight-win season is not out of the question,” Ubben says. “I was surprised the Sooners were this high to start the season. They’re not one of the top-10 teams in the country right now.”"
It’s pretty obvious Ubben is not all in on Oklahoma this season, but to suggest that the Sooners could win just seven games this season is over the top, in my opinion. Tell me which five games they are going to lose? Yes, I acknowledge that it’s technically possible for OU to lose five games, but it’s also possible they could win all five of those games
Ubben is also being a little loose with his facts. Oklahoma lost three of their top four receivers from last season, but they also get back Theo Weese, who is arguably better than the three they lost, and offensive coordinator Ted Roof has some outstanding young talent ready to step up.
Ubben went on to say that the loss of longtime Sooner assistant Cale Gundy is going to have a much bigger impact on the team than Brent Venables and others are leading us to believe.
“Gundy was an asset to the program and a mainstay in the facility through multiple head coaches,” Ubben writes. “Now, a first-time position coach (L’Damian Washington) inherits an inexperienced receiver group less than a month before the season. That suff matters and pretending it doesn’t is naive.”
I don’t believe Mr. Ubben will be receiving his 2022 Oklahoma Football Media Guide anytime soon.