Oklahoma football: Sooners would have been better Big 12 title game opponent

It is unfortunate for fans — but not necessarily for the Big 12 — that the 2023 Big 12 Championship didn’t feature an Oklahoma football rematch with the College Football Playoff-bound Texas Longhorns.

Instead, what fans got was a Texas blowout over a much inferior Oklahoma State team made possible because Oklahoma mostly sleepwalked to a loss against OSU when those two teams met in late October. The Sooners suffered a 27-24 loss to the Cowboys. Oklahoma and O-State ended up with identical conference records (7-2) in second place in the Big 12 standings.

Because of that and because of Big 12 tiebreaker rules — head-to-head outcomes were at the top of the tiebreaker criteria — Oklahoma State won the spot opposite the Longhorns in the Big 12 Championship.

Who is to say whether the outcome of an OU-Texas championship game would have turned out differently, but what it would have done is created more intrigue and probably a larger list of storylines, not the least of which would be a championship game between two teams that are leaving the Big 12 for the SEC after this season.

There shouldn’t be any question that Oklahoma was the second-best team in the Big 12 this season and the only team in the conference other than Texas to reach double digit wins this season. Numerous college football analysts in early October were projecting after OU’s win over Texas in the annual Red River Rivalry game that the two teams would meet again in the Big 12 Championship.

That would have set up a classic rematch similar to the 2018 Big 12 title game between the same two teams, only this time it would have been the Longhorns seeking revenge from the earlier loss. In 2018, the Sooners were able to avenge an earlier loss to Texas and win their 12th Big 12 championship.

Here is a statistical comparison between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State this season (national ranking in parentheses). They say numbers don’t lie, so you be the judge for yourself on which team would have posed a better matchup with Big 12 champion Texas.

                                                                            Oklahoma                 Oklahoma State

CFP ranking                                                           12                                 22

Scoring offense                                                    43.2 (3)                       29.5 (53)

Scoring defense                                                   22.3 (41)                    29.0 (90T)

Rushing offense                                               180.6 (36)                  156.9 (65)

Rushing defense                                              147.8 (58T)               174.0 (103)

Passing offense                                               321.8 (6)                    264.2 (37)

Passing defense                                              242.2 (99)                 267.5 (122)

Total offense                                                    502.4 (5)                    421.2 (42)

Total defense                                                   389.9 (79)                 441.5 (120)

3rd-down conversion offense                      49.4% (9)                    37.9% (77)

3rd-down conversion defense                     30.4% (14)                 42.2% (98)

Turnover margin                                            +11 (6)                         +3 (47T)