Oklahoma football: The real season starts now for ‘hungry’ Sooners
By Chip Rouse
The 2022 Oklahoma football season is three games old, and now we have at least a snapshot of what the rest of the season could look like.
The Sooners have tuned up for the Big 12 portion of the schedule beating three Power 5 teams by 30 or more points each. Now the real season begins — starting with Kansas State on Saturday night at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium — as the new-look Oklahoma team under head coach Brent Venables begins its quest for a 15th Big 12 championship.
There is no hiding the fact that the teams in the Big 12 — even Kansas, which already has three wins, matching the most the Jayhawks have had in a season since winning five games in 2009 — are considerably better than the three teams the Sooners have beaten this season.
With the exception of the first half of OU’s game against Kent State, the Sooners have looked very good both on the offensive side, which, admittedly, has come to be expected of an Oklahoma team, and on defense, where they rank 14th in the country in scoring defense (10.0 points a game) and tied for 35th in total defense, ironically with Venables former team Clemson, giving up 312.7 yards per game.
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As good as Oklahoma has played through the first three games, however, the Sooners only rank sixth in the Big 12 in scoring offense, fourth in the Big 12 in total offense and fifth in total defense. Granted, outside of Texas playing No. 1 Alabama, and Baylor going on the road to play a ranked BYU team, the Big 12 schedule to date hasn’t been filled with marquee games during the nonconference portion.
It’s safe to say, that visiting Kansas State will pose the first real challenge to the Sooners. The Wildcats historically have been a tough out for Oklahoma, and it doesn’t really matter where the game is played. Over the last decade, the Sooners and Wildcats have played a number of close games. In the 10 games between the two teams during the past decade, Kansas State has won four of them, including three in Norman, where OU has lost just 11 times in the past 23 seasons.
And Kansas State is just the start of what is expected to be a very competitive conference schedule for the Crimson and Cream. With Kansas’ apparent resurgence, there doesn’t appear to be an easy game on the schedule. Fortunately, Oklahoma has K-State, Baylor and Oklahoma State, three of the five teams, including the Sooners, believed to be in contention for the Big 12 title, at home this season.
Oklahoma’s next three games are this weekend against Kansas State, the following weekend at TCU and then the annual Red River Showdown with Texas at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.
The media that follow the Big 12 and the teams in it picked Baylor to repeat as Big 12 champion this season with OU and Oklahoma State in close pursuit. After Texas’ near upset of No. 1 Alabama a couple of weeks ago, however, the Longhorns — who may be really back this time — have emerged as the team to beat in the Big 12, according to many college football analysts.
One thing is for certain, the next couple of months in the Big 12 should provide plenty of cheers and jeers and lots of exciting football, and in the course of the next few weeks, we’re going to learn a lot more about this Oklahoma football team and find out how good they really are.
That journey starts for real this coming weekend.