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Oklahoma football: How would 2023 Sooners fare in March Madness-like format?

By Chip Rouse

Oklahoma coach Brent Venables runs onto the field before 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 runs onto the field before 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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What if college football’s postseason was played out in a 64-team playoff like March Madness — how would Brent Venables’ second Oklahoma football team fare in such a format in 2023?

This is pure fantasy, we know, but since we’re in the red zone, to use a football term, insofar as March Madness and the NCAA Basketball Tournament is concerned, why not have a little fun and imagine how the 2023 edition of Sooner football might do if the season were played out in the form of a March Madness-like bracket.

Earlier this week, we posted a football article citing a similar football-to-basketball crossover idea that was acted upon by a pair of college football writers for The Athletic, Andy Staples and Ari Wasserman. Playing off the timing presented by this weekend’s Sweet 16 round in basketball, the two Athletic writers offered their opinion of the 16 best college football programs currently and how they would be seeded.

ESPN jumped on the same idea, except they identified and ranked a full 64-team bracket based on projections for the 2023 college football season. In an article by Chris Low, ESPN seeded the teams 1 through 64 and disclosed that the seedings were based “to some degree on ESPN’s latest SP+ projections entering the 2023 season.”

The four No. 1 seeds probably aren’t much of a surprise, given that for the most part they represent the usual cast of characters: No. 1 overall seed Georgia, followed by Michigan, Ohio State and Alabama.

Low listed Oklahoma (again, the 2023 OU football team) on the 5-seed line in what would factor as No. 19 out of 64. Texas is also seeded on the 5-line, one spot ahead of the Sooners at No. 18, and TCU one spot after ranked 20th.

Here is how the other Big 12 football teams were seeded in ESPN’s 64-team bracket:

6-seed — Kansas State (No. 21)

9-seed — Texas Tech (No. 34), Oklahoma State (No. 36)

10-seed — Baylor (No. 39)

11-seed — UCF (No. 41)

12-seed — Iowa State (No. 46), Cincinnati (No. 47)

13-seed — West Virginia (No. 50), Houston (No. 52)

14 seed — Kansas (No. 55)

15-seed — BYU (No. 58)

In the first of two articles, ESPN played out the first two rounds of this fictional 2023 College Football Playoff to arrive at a Sweet 16

No. 5 Oklahoma is matched up against No. 12 soon-to-be Big 12 foe Cincinnati in a first-round game in the Midwest Region.

Do the Sooners make it past Cincinnati and survive to the second round. And then to the Sweet 16? You can read the results yourself by clicking here.

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