Oklahoma football: Where will Sooners place in Big 12 preseason media poll?
By Chip Rouse
In a couple of weeks, the unofficial start to the 2023 season will kick off with Big 12 Media Days in Arlington, Texas. This year’s annual July gathering will be held on July 12 and 13 at AT&T Stadium and will be like no other with the Texas and Oklahoma football programs participating for one last time and four new schools joining the party.
One of the highly anticipated events that is generally right around the time or slightly ahead of Big 12 Media Days is the release of the Big 12 preseason poll projecting how the conference teams will stack up when all the dust is settled at the end of the regular season.
With four new teams — BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF — entering the mix this year and the Sooners and Longhorns giving it one last go around, it will be interesting to see how the media representatives who cover the Big 12 and vote in the annual preseason poll weigh in on this season’s 14-team conference race.
While we wait in anticipation of learning who the conference contenders and pretenders will be in the view of those who know the conference best, it has been announced who from each of the teams will be attending Big 12 Media Days. Oklahoma, along with head coach Brent Venables and four Sooner players, will appear on Day 2 of the proceedings. In addition to the Sooners, Cincinnati, Central Florida, Iowa State, Kansas State, Texas Tech and West Virginia will be participating on the second day.
Accompanying Venables from OU will be two players on offense and two on defense: QB Dillon Gabriel, DL Jonah Laulu, WR Drake Stoops and LB Danny Stutsman.
Circling back to the preseason media poll and the projected order of finish in the Big 12 standings, this will most likely be the second straight year Oklahoma has not been picked as the conference favorite. That is significant because between 2011 and 2021, the Sooners were picked to win the conference nine times in 11 years, including six years in a row from 2015 to 2020. OU actually prevailed as conference champion seven times over that 11-year time frame.
OU was picked to finish second in last year’s preseason poll but ended up in a tie for seventh with Kansas, both with 3-6 conference records.
My guess is that the Sooners will be in the No. 3 spot when the 2023 Big 12 preseason poll is released in the coming days and looking up at No. 1 Texas and Kansas State, although multiple media sources have projected OU and Texas as the best two teams based on overall talent level and the way the unbalanced schedule works out this season.
Prior to the release of the 2023 Big 12 schedule, most of the way-too-early top-25 forecasts have projected the Sooners as the fourth or fifth best team in the conference looking ahead to the new season.
That will ultimately be determined by the Sooners themselves on the field, but from all indications, it’s a pretty good bet Oklahoma will be better than its record last season said it was