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Oklahoma football: Will Sooners move up, down or what this week in rankings?

By Chip Rouse

Oklahoma coach Brent Venables celebrates with fans after a college football game between the University of Oklahoma Sooners (OU) and the UTEP Miners at Gaylord Family - Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Okla., Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022. Oklahoma won 45-13.Ou Vs Utep
Oklahoma coach Brent Venables celebrates with fans after a college football game between the University of Oklahoma Sooners (OU) and the UTEP Miners at Gaylord Family - Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Okla., Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022. Oklahoma won 45-13.Ou Vs Utep /
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With a 17th straight Oklahoma football season-opening win up on the board and already a couple of top-10 teams going down in Week 1, where will OU come out when the new rankings come out on Tuesday?

Brent Venables and practically every other college head coach will tell you that rankings don’t really matter — and especially not this early in the season. Just win the games in front of you and everything else will take care of itself.

Well, I hate to be a contrarian, but rankings do matter to the fans — in the offseason, in the preseason, in the middle of the season, and certainly at the end of the long season.

The Sooners were in the No. 9 spot in both the Associated Press and Coaches Poll to begin the Venables era of OU football, the highest ranked Big 12 team, but only a couple of spots ahead of reigning conference champion Baylor and Oklahoma State.

Nine of the 10 Big 12 teams won their season opener, by the way, with only West Virginia coming up on the short end of the scoreboard, losing to 17th-ranked Pittsburgh.

College football being what it is — a game of both emotion and skill — there are surprises generally every week. And not every team starts out with a so-called cupcake opponent for an opening game. Notre Dame and Utah, for example, both top-10 teams to start the 2022 season, opened up against especially tough first-game opponents.

Bear in mind that these nonconference games are scheduled six or more years out. The Fighting Irish, No. 5 in both major weekly polls to begin the season, had to go to Columbus, Ohio, to start the season against No. 2 Ohio State. Notre Dame put up a tremendous fight — even led in the game in the second half — before succumbing to the 17-point favorite Buckeyes 21-10.

No. 7 Utah had another challenging opener, having to travel to Gainesville, Florida, to face Florida. The home team held serve in that contest as well, with the Gators prevailing 29-26 in a close one against the visiting Utes.

So, with a game still to be played this Labor Day weekend involving a top 10-ranked team — No, 4 Clemson is at Georgia Tech on Monday — what impact will the Week 1 action have on Oklahoma when the new rankings come out on Tuesday?

There were some dominant wins like the Sooners by teams behind OU in the initial rankings of the season. Most notably, could the 66-14 win by USC in Lincoln Riley’s coaching debut at his new school jump the Trojans several spots and into the top 10? Probably not, but USC should definitely move up from No. 14.

My projection is that Oklahoma will occupy the No. 7 position in one or both of the two major polls in the Week 2 rankings. That courtesy of the loss by previous No. 7 Utah and No. 5 Notre Dame. The Irish could still be ranked ahead of the Sooners, but my guess is that ND will drop to No. 10.

Baylor and Oklahoma State both won rather handily in Week 1, so they should still be within one or two spots of the Sooners in the new rankings. Also expect Texas to break into the AP Top 25 after the Longhorns’ 52-10 pasting of overmatched Louisiana Monroe. The Longhorns were already No. 18 in the Coaches Poll.

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