Stormin in Norman
Fansided

Oklahoma football: Big 12 Championship game is set minus Sooners

By Chip Rouse

Oct 21, 2023; Houston, Texas, USA; General view of the Big 12 logo on the field at TDECU Stadium before the game between the Houston Cougars and the Texas Longhorns. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 21, 2023; Houston, Texas, USA; General view of the Big 12 logo on the field at TDECU Stadium before the game between the Houston Cougars and the Texas Longhorns. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports /
facebooktwitterreddit

Two teams are left standing to duke it out for the 2024 Big 12 football crown, and neither team wears crimson and cream. The Oklahoma football team is left on the outside looking in for a third straight season.

This year marks the 22nd season the Big 12 has held a championship game in football. The Sooners have played in 12 of them and won 11. The Big 12 did not hold a conference championship game between 2011 and 2016, but Oklahoma was awarded the conference title in three of those years as well.

Two-thirds of the way through the season, it appeared that Oklahoma and Texas would be the two teams vying for the 2023 conference crown in the final season for both teams as members of the Big 12. Seven games into the season OU stood a perfect 7-0 and Texas at 6-1, with the Longhorns’ only loss being to the Sooners in the annual Red River Rivalry game.

But that all changed in back-to-back games for Oklahoma in early November. The Sooners fell at Kansas and again the following weekend at Oklahoma State — by a combined total of eight points — and that changed everything as far as the Sooners were concerned. Instead of controlling its own destiny and path to the Big 12 title game, OU suddenly needed help to get there.

Oklahoma needed either Texas or Oklahoma State to lose one of their final two games to make it into the championship game. As we all know, that did not happen, and as a result the Longhorns and Cowboys will battle it out on Saturday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, to lay claim to the Big 12 Championship trophy.

Texas is looking for its fourth Big 12 football crown; Oklahoma State is seeking its second conference title, but this will be the Cowboys’ first appearance in a Big 12 Championship game.

The Sooners are the only team this season to beat Texas, but the loss to in-state rival Oklahoma State proved fatal insofar as Oklahoma’s championship game hopes.

Oklahoma State is awarded the championship game appearance opposite Big 12 regular-season champion Texas despite Oklahoma being higher ranked than the Cowboys in the College Football Playoff rankings, the Associated Press Top 25 and the Coaches Poll. The Sooners are No. 12 in all three rankings while OSU is no higher than 18th in any of the three.

Oklahoma (10-2) also owns a better overall record than Oklahoma State (9-3), but the Sooners’ loss in the head-to-head conference matchup between the two rivals takes precedence over all other mitigating factors.

This weekend may be one of the very few times you will see Oklahoma fans rooting for Texas in a football game.

Home/OU Football