Oklahoma football: ESPN predicts a ‘bounce-back’ 2023 season for Sooners

The talk season in college football thankfully is about to come to conclusion, and for Oklahoma football fans, it can’t come quick enough.

For the past eight months, Sooner fans have had to endure an emotional and psychological state of despair that typically follows in the aftershocks of a losing season. And let’s face it, that is not something that a program with the enormous success and national reputation that Oklahoma has earned over the years has much experience with.

Here’s the deal: The Sooners had experienced just six losing seasons in the past 76 years, or since Bud Wilkinson took the reins of the Oklahoma football program, before last season. Interestingly, two of the six previous losing campaigns were on Wilkinson’s watch (1980 and ’81). Barry Switzer and Bob Stoops never had a losing season at OU.

The one silver lining that Sooner fans could hold on to in building hopes for Year 2 under Brent Venables is that four of OU’s seven 2023 losses, all coming in the final five games of the season, were by three points. That was the difference between a 6-7 record and a potential 10-3 season.

Most every college football expert expects a better season from the Sooners in 2023, but with caveats. Oklahoma did make thepreseason top-25 put out by both the Associated Press and the AFCA coaches who vote in the Coaches Poll, something that has become almost automatic, this being the 24th consecutive year the Sooners have begun the season ranked in the top 25. Unlike most all of the previous 24 years, however, OU will begin the season at the back end of the rankings (19th in the Coaches Poll and 20th in the AP poll).

Among the national media outlets that are expecting a much better outcome from the Sooners this time around is ESPN. Staff writer Mark Schlabach likes the additions Venables is bringing in with a No. 4-ranked 2023 recruiting class and through the transfer portal. Especially notable are the additions along the defensive front, which should appreciably improve the Sooners’ pass rush and run-stopping capability.

Here is what Schlabach recently wrote in a 2023 preview of the Big 12 and Oklahoma:

"“Oklahoma bounces back: There’s no way a Brent Venables-coached defense can be that bad again — the Sooner ranked 122nd out of 131 FBS teams in total defense…“With the addition of (LB Dasan) McCullough and five other defensive linemen out of the transfer portal, Venables should have enough bodies up front to play defense the way he’s used to. With quarterback Dillon Gabriel coming back, OU won’t have to worry about scoring.”"

Not everything Schlabach had to say about the Sooners, though, was positive. The ESPN college football writer projected that Oklahoma State would get the last laugh in what could be the final game in the long-running Bedlam football series. He predicts a 31-28 OSU victory on Nov. 4 in Stillwater.

Schlabach ranked the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State game in Stillwater on Nov. 4 the Game of the Year in the Big 12 this season.