Oklahoma would love to be able to get off to the same 5-0 start as last season. Unfortunately, the Sooners' schedule to start out the 2026 season is dramatically different and inherently more difficult than a year ago.
The Sooners' five wins to start out last season included a pair of victories over ranked Power 4 opponents (No. 15 Michigan and No. 22 Auburn) at the time the game was played. The other three opening games a year ago were against not-very-good non-conference teams, with Oklahoma winning by an average margin of five-plus touchdowns.
What a difference a year can make. This time around, Oklahoma's first five games of the season line up as UTEP in the season opener at home, followed by a stiff road test at No. 16 Michigan, back home to face New Mexico, then at No. 3 Georgia. Then two weekends later comes the annual trip down I-35 for the Red River Rivalry against No. 5 Texas in Dallas.
The Sooners will be fortunate to come away with as many as three wins in that treacherous opening five-game gauntlet, and four wins would be like receiving a gift from heaven.
Much has been made of the difficulty of the Oklahoma football schedule the past three seasons, but that is what the Sooners signed up for when they joined the SEC. And beginning this season, they've added one more conference game to the schedule by cutting back the number of non-conference games from four to three. That just adds to the degree of difficulty and level of competition that every SEC team must face over a 12-game regular-season slate.
The expectation is that the Oklahoma offense will be much improved in 2026, and that absolutely will need to be the case if the Sooners are to experience a similar level of success as last season and avoid the disappointment of actually being a better overall team statistically but with a record that doesn't truly reflect it.
How the Sooners make it through the brutally tough opening five games will set both the tone and direction for what we can expect from Oklahoma Team 132 over what might just be the defining remaining seven games of the regular season.
Here are four bold predictions that I believe we will see from the 2026 edition of Oklahoma football:
John Mateer re-emerges as a leading Heisman Trophy candidate
John Mateer played two-thirds of last season with a serious injury to his throwing hand. He won't use that as an excuse, however, for a personal performance in 2025 that fell well short of preseason expectations. Before the injury, he actually was a leading candidate for the Heisman Trophy. He is back this season, fully healthy and with added muscle and perhaps in the best shape in his life, the result of a diligent offseason of physical and mental preparation and the fierce determination to get better and come back primed to prove to everyone what he is truly capable of.
Read more: A reminder John Mateer was a Heisman Trophy contender before 2025 went off script
Mateer will re-emerge as one of the leading Heisman contenders, supported by a career 2026 performance. Last season, seriously hampered by a broken thumb, a nonproductive running game and an absence of reliable pass receiving weapons, Mateer threw for under 3,000 yards with almost as many interceptions (11) as touchdown passes (14). Look for those numbers to improve significantly in 2026.
The former Washington State transfer and Texas native will throw for 3,500-plus yards and 25 touchdowns and tack on at least eight rushing TDs for good measure. Better yet, he will cut his interception rate nearly in half.
Oklahoma defense exceeds last season's TFLs
The Oklahoma defense ranked 14th in the country in 2024 in tackles for loss. Last season, the Sooners ranked No. 2 nationally in that category behind national champion Indiana. In 2025, OU recorded 122 tackles for loss in 13 games, an average of 9.39 per game. This year, with a veteran front seven, the Sooners will lead the nation and average close to 11 TFLs per game.
OU increases run-game production by greater than 50%
Oklahoma has pride itself over the years long featuring one of the game's most explosive and productive rushing offenses. The past few seasons, however, the Sooner ground game has been erratic and largely ineffective.
OU has not had a running back reach 1,000 rushing yards in a season since Eric Gray in 2022. That won't change this season, but the Sooners will have three different players register at least 600 yards on the ground, including QB John Mateer, and as a unit total over 2,300 yards on the ground for the first time in three years. That would be nearly 800 more than a year ago.
Sooners upset No. 1 Texas to improve to 4-1 on the season
In the long history of the Red River Rivalry between archenemies Oklahoma and Texas, the spoils rarely go to the underdog. In fact, it has happened fewer than 20 times in the Associated Press Top 25 era.
Barring a total collapse by the Longhorns to open the 2026 season, Oklahoma will most assuredly be the underdog in this year's game. In fact, there is a good chance that Texas will be ranked No. 1 in the nation when this year's game is played in Dallas on Oct. 10, and the point spread could even be double digits, if Texas beats No. 1 Ohio State Week 2.
John Mateer avenges last year's poor performance in this game and leads the Sooners to a narrow upset win, but a huge win nevertheless. Coupled with its win at Michigan a couple of weeks earlier, Oklahoma completes a difficult five-game opening stretch that included games with three ranked opponents, winning four of the five to go 4-1.
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