The more things change, the more they stay the same. That oft-quoted expression seems like a perfect way to describe the 2025 Oklahoma football schedule, but Brent Venables and the Sooners are doing everything they can to ensure it doesn't define the team's performance in the coming season.
While the schedule in Year 2 of Oklahoma's membership in the SEC features four new nonconference opponents, including a home date in Week 2 against Michigan, the Sooners' schedule against SEC opponents is exactly the same as this past season.
And with the exception of the stunning come-from-behind win over Auburn and, with all due respect, the shocking upset of Alabama, OU was not much of a factor against most of the remaining six SEC opponents the Sooners faced in 2024.
About the only thing that is different about Oklahoma's conference schedule in the coming season is where the game will be played.
That means the Sooners will entertain visits from Auburn, Ole Miss, Missouri and LSU, and go on the road to play South Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama. And, of course, the annual rivalry game with Texas remains in its traditional place at Cotton Bowl Stadium in Dallas on the second weekend in October.
The order of the games on the 2025 schedule is also a little different. For example, Auburn replaces Tennessee as OU's SEC home opener. Unlike last season, the Sooners will complete the nonconference schedule in the first five games of the season. Like last season, however, they will end the season against Alabama, Missouri and LSU, and with a bye week before playing the Crimson Tide.
Most every media outlet that covers college football ranked Oklahoma's 2024 schedule as one of the most difficult, not just in the SEC, but in all of college football. Six of the Sooners' eight conference opponents were ranked in the final Associated Press Top 25 poll, and one other (LSU) was ranked in the top 15 to start the season.
Conventional wisdom tells us we can expect more of the same in 2025 regarding the strength of schedule. And at least one college football expert, Brad Crawford of 247Sports, ranked the Sooners as having the most difficult schedule next season among teams at the FBS level.
The Sooners should again have a strong defensive presence with a talented core of returning players at all three levels. An appreciable improvement is also expected in the offense, which was beset by injuries in 2024 and was uncharacteristically among the worst in the college game this past season.
OU has brought in Ben Arbuckle from Washington State as the new offensive coordinator, along with former Washington State quarterback John Mateer, the top quarterback available in the transfer portal this offseason behind possibly former Georgia QB Carson Beck, to lead the offensive turnaround.
The offensive line, and the availability and experience in the wide receiver room should also be better in the coming season.
Nevertheless, the 2025 schedule again does not set up favorably for Oklahoma. And it may even be a bit tougher -- if you can believe it -- than it was in 2024.
Every conference game on the Sooners' schedule next season features an opponent that is ranked two or more times in a composite put together by the Sporting News of 12 media outlets that have come out so far with a way-too-early top-25 projection for next season. And when you include Michigan in Week 2, that means nine of OU's 12 regular-season games are potentially against ranked teams.
The schedule rotation completely changes in 2026. The Sooners' 2025 schedule includes seven of the eight SEC teams that finished the 2024 season in the top half of the conference standings. Only Georgia is missing out of that group.
Beginning in 2026, OU will face seven of the eight teams that made up the bottom half of the SEC standings this past season.
In addition to the annual game with Texas, Oklahoma's 2026 schedule will include Georgia, Texas A&M, Florida, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt. It's hard to imagine that the Sooners wouldn't fare a little better against (at least from an odds perspective) this group of conference teams than the ones they have been paired against for this two-year cycle.
For Venables' sake, let's hope the SEC football schedulers haven't dealt the Sooners a hand they can't win with right before the cards are about to get better.