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Oklahoma football: One week in, Sooners’ premium bowl prospects still high

By Chip Rouse

IRVING, TX - OCTOBER 16: A detail view of the College Football Playoff logo shown during a press conference on October 16, 2013 in Irving, Texas. Condoleezza Rice, Stanford University professor and former United States Secretary of State, was chosen to serve as one of the 13 members that will select four teams to compete in the first playoff at the end of the 2014 season. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
IRVING, TX - OCTOBER 16: A detail view of the College Football Playoff logo shown during a press conference on October 16, 2013 in Irving, Texas. Condoleezza Rice, Stanford University professor and former United States Secretary of State, was chosen to serve as one of the 13 members that will select four teams to compete in the first playoff at the end of the 2014 season. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images) /
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There seems to be a slight difference of opinion in the ESPN mother ship about how high the Oklahoma football team can go this season.

With just one week’s performance to go by, hope still springs eternal if you’re a Sooner football fan about just how good this Oklahoma team can be under energetic new head coach Brent Venables.

There are some folks who project the Sooners as the third or fourth best team in the Big 12 this season. At the same time, there are a few others who believe OU is capable of taking home another Big 12 championship trophy and making it into the College Football Playoff.

Among the latter are two ESPN college football reporters, Mark Schlabach and Kyle Bonagura. Both had Oklahoma playing Alabama in one of the national semifinal games in the preseason, and they are holding to that projection after Week 1 of the season.

The same two ESPN reporters have Baylor earning a berth to the New Year’s Six Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, presumably as the runner-up to the Sooners in the Big 12 Championship.

According to the projections by Schlabach and Bonagura, as six or seven other Big 12 teams — pr a total of nine out of 10 — could qualify to go bowling this postseason.

The ESPN computers don’t agree with the playoff assessment by the two ESPN human staffers, however. According to the updated ESPN Playoff Predictor after Week 1 of college football action, Oklahoma has the third best chance of making the CFP this season.

If the season ended today, Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia and Clemson would be competing for the national championship, according to the ESPN computer projections. The Playoff Predictor gives Texas the best chance to reach the CFP this early in the season (that should take care of itself this weekend, however, assuming that Alabama takes care of business in Austin in its Week 2 matchup against the Longhorns).

The Longhorns have an 11 percent chance to reach the playoff this season, according to the Playoff Predictor after the Week 1 results. Baylor is next at nine percent, followed by Oklahoma at six percent. A total of 13 teams are given at least a two percent chance of making this year’s playoff.

Of course, there is still plenty of football left to be played, but no team ever made it to the top of the ladder if it didn’t believe in itself. And this Sooner football team, led by their head coach, are true believers.

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