Stormin in Norman
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Oklahoma football: Sooners 19th in first Coaches Poll of 2023 season

By Chip Rouse

NORMAN, OK - SEPTEMBER 10: The lights are turned off after a touchdown by the Oklahoma Sooners against the Kent State Golden Flashes as fans hold up their phones in the third quarter at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on September 10, 2022 in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma won 33-3. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)
NORMAN, OK - SEPTEMBER 10: The lights are turned off after a touchdown by the Oklahoma Sooners against the Kent State Golden Flashes as fans hold up their phones in the third quarter at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on September 10, 2022 in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma won 33-3. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images) /
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Oklahoma football has been ranked in the preseason top 25 of the American Football Coaches Association Coaches Poll every season since 2000, and that streak continues in 2023.

The Sooners are ranked No. 19 in the initial Coaches Poll for the 2023 season that was released on Monday.

Ironically, that is almost the same spot where they began the season in Bob Stoops’ second season as the Sooners’ head coach in 2000. OU was ranked 20th in the preseason Coaches Poll in 2000 and 19th in the initial Associated Press Top 25 that season. OU, of course, finished the 2000 season with a perfect 13-0 record and won the national championship.

This coming season is Brent Venables‘ second at the helm of Sooner football.

The No. 19 ranking appears to be in line with some of the early projections of where Oklahoma would be ranked in the major polls to begin the 2023 season. The Sooners had been predicted to fall somewhere in the 16 to 19 range, according to some of the leading experts.

Georgia, Michigan, Alabama, Ohio State and LSU, in that order, command the top-five spots in the initial Coaches Poll rankings for the coming season. Lincoln Riley’s USC Trojans fell just under the top five at No. 6. Other than possibly the order, the Preseason AP Top 25 ranking of the top five or six teams should be the same.

Two-time defending national champion Georgia collected 61 of the 66 first-place votes cast. Alabama received four first-place votes and Ohio State one.

Six teams from the SEC appear in the Coaches Poll Top 25, including three of the top five. If you include Oklahoma and Texas, who will join the SEC next season, that number increases to eight.

Five Big 12 teams are ranked in the 2023 Preseason Coaches Poll, with Texas the highest at No. 12. TCU is 16, Kansas State 17, Oklahoma 19 and Texas Tech 24.

Sixteen times since the 2000 season Oklahoma has started the college football season in the top five of the Coaches Poll, and three times the Sooners have started outside of the top five but finished the season as one of the top-five teams.

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