Oklahoma football: Sooners fall out of Top 25 after back-to-back losses
By Chip Rouse
When was the last time as many as five Big 12 teams were ranked in college football’s top 25 and the Oklahoma football Sooners were not one of them?
It certainly hasn’t been any time in recent memory.
Thanks to the Sooners, Kansas State and TCU are now ranked in the top 25 in both the Associated Press poll and the Coaches Poll. Oklahoma still received votes in both major polls but was well down in the national pecking order.
In two weeks’ time, Oklahoma has dropped from as high as No. 6 in the AP Top 25 to 18th and this week out of the rankings due to back-to-back losses to Kansas State and TCU. Both teams were unranked when they played the Sooners.
The Sooners would be 40th, according to votes received in the AP poll and 37th in the Coaches Poll.
The big news this week is that Alabama jumped former No. 1 Georgia in both the AP and Coaches polls as a result of Georgia’s much-closer-than-expected, four-point win over Missouri. Meanwhile, Alabama recorded a 23-point win at Arkansas.
Oklahoma State is the highest-ranked of the Big 12 teams again this week. The undefeated Cowboys are No. 7 in both polls. The Associated Press has TCU at No. 17, Kansas No. 19 and Kansas State No. 20.
Baylor dropped out of the AP Top 25 after its loss this weekend to Oklahoma State but remains in the Coaches Poll, dropping from 14th to 22nd. Kansas is 17th, TCU 18th and K-State 20th in the Coaches Poll this week.
You have to go back to 2009 for the last team Kansas was ranked higher than Oklahoma in any of the major college football national polls. Kansas has won a total of 16 games in the 10 seasons prior to this one. The Jayhawks are undefeated at 5-0 this season. During that same time, the Sooners’ record overall was 107-24.
It’s definitely a new era of Oklahoma football.