Oklahoma football: OU’s 2024 schedule serves as welcome-to-the-SEC reality check

Earlier this week, we got out first look at the schedule awaiting Brent Venables and Oklahoma football in its first season as a member of the all-powerful Southeastern Conference.

In addition to serving as a giant wake-up call on how things are about to dramatically change for Sooner fans and their beloved gridiron warriors, who have grown accustomed to high-level historical success, it also provided an opportunity for even greater national exposure, playing in the league widely viewed as the strongest in college football.

It is interesting how the attention on Oklahoma football has quickly shifted a year ahead to 2024 when there is still a 2023 season to be played. The Sooners still have a lame-duck year of competition in the Big 12, a league that, notwithstanding last season, Oklahoma has long dominated, before making the move to the SEC, where bigger challenges as well as challengers await.

The reactions to the Sooners’ 2024 SEC schedule reveal have been mixed, but mostly fixated on the observation that Oklahoma will play one of the more difficult conference schedules in its inaugural SEC season, while fellow Big 12 addition and longtime rival Texas draws one of the easier eight-game SEC slates.

Former Heisman Trophy winner and standout quarterback at Florida, Tim Tebow, had this to say about what the Sooners face in their SEC debut season:

"“The SEC gave Oklahoma a gauntlet,” the former Florida star said. “They got to play Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, LSU, Auburn, Ole Miss and Mizzou…Come on, man. Like what a gauntlet Year 1.”"

That only tells a part of the story, really. Because OU’s annual rivalry game with Texas in 2024 will be considered a home game for Oklahoma, the Sooners will only have three SEC home games that year along with four road games. And the road games will be at LSU. Auburn, Ole Miss and Missouri.

Two of Oklahoma’s three home dates in 2024, however, will be against two of the best teams in the SEC in Alabama and Tennessee.

Excluding Texas and Missouri, with whom the Sooners have had many a battle against over the years, Oklahoma has a 9-5-1 record against five of the six other SEC opponents scheduled in 2024. When OU hosts South Carolina that season, it will be the first ever meeting between the two teams, assuming the Sooners and Gamecocks don’t meet up in the 2023 postseason.

The Sooners are 50-63-5 all-time against archrival Texas, including a 49-0 shellacking last season, and own a 67-24-5 advantage over Missouri.

OU fans might be surprised to learn that of the six existing SEC teams the Sooners will face in 2024, they have a winning record all-time against all but Ole Miss (0-1 and LSU (1-2), including a 65-28 beatdown against Joe Burrow and the 2019 national champion LSU squad in the most recent matchup.

The 2024 Oklahoma SEC schedule also features a couple of personal connections with the Sooner football program. Josh Heupel, who was quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator under Bob Stoops from 2006 to 2014 and was the quarterback on the Sooner’s 2000 national championship team, is now the head coach at Tennessee. And South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer was tight ends coach and special teams coordinator at Oklahoma from 2018-2020 under Lincoln Riley.

If an early forecast by USA Today’s Jace Evans holds true, Oklahoma’s 2024 schedule is going to get the Sooners a lot of must-see TV viewing. Evans this week published a list of the 10 best SEC football games on the 2024 schedule. The Sooners are the opponent in five of them:

1. Georgia at Alabama

2. Texas at Texas A&M

3. Georgia at Texas

4. Alabama at Oklahoma

5. Oklahoma vs. Texas in Dallas

6. Oklahoma at LSU

7. Oklahoma at Ole Miss

8. Texas at Arkansas

9. Tennessee at Oklahoma

10. Auburn at Alabama

Here is some social media reaction to Oklahoma’s 2024 SEC schedule: