Oklahoma is back in the College Football Playoff picture after its 23-21 win over then-No. 4 Alabama over the weekend.
ESPN bowl gurus Mark Schlabach and Kyle Bonagura projected the Sooners as the No. 8 seed in the 12-team playoff field heading into the next-to-last weekend of the 2025 regular season. They projected 9-seed Notre Dame as Oklahoma's first-round opponent. With the opening round of the playoff to be played on campus sites and the Sooners the higher seed of the two teams, under this particular scenario, the game would be played at Oklahoma.
Sooners projected to host Notre Dame in College Football Playoff
Should the Sooners win out in their final two games against Missouri and LSU, a rematch with Alabama, which Schlabach and Bonagura currently project as a 10-seed, is also possible.
While any college team would certainly take an 8- or 9-seed in the CFP over being left out of the field, the trouble with either one of those seeds is that should OU survive the opening round and advance, its next game would be against the top seed, which is looking like it will be defending national champion Ohio State.
Regarding a potential playoff matchup between Oklahoma and Notre Dame, that might not be the best news, either. The Sooners and Fighting Irish have played each other 10 times, with the Irish winning eight of the 10 games. The two teams have actually played 11 times, but the 2012 game in Norman, which was also won by Notre Dame, 35-21, was vacated, along with 11 other Notre Dame wins that season because of NCAA violations.
The biggest drama surrounding the first two sets of CFP rankings also involved OU and Notre Dame. The committee had the Fighting Irish ahead of OU and Texas despite all three teams having two losses then, but the Sooners and Longhorns clearly having better resumes.
This isn't the first time this season that Schlabach and Bonagura have projected the Sooners in the playoff field, and hopefully it won't be the last, but that will depend solely on the outcome of OU's final two games, both of which will be played at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman.
The week of the Tennessee game, with Oklahoma headed to Knoxville sporting a 6-2 overall record and 2-2 in conference play, both ESPN writers projected the Sooners' postseason bowl destination as the Texas Bowl to be played on Dec. 27 in Houston. While both Schlabach and Bonagura were in agreement on the bowl assignment, they differed on who Oklahoma would be paired. Schlabach had OU playing TCU, and Bonagura's prediction was an OU-Houston matchup.
The fat lady hasn't sung yet. She's not even warmed up yet. It's now all about what happens going forward in the final two games. The Sooners are hoping, of course, that the past two top-25 road wins are prelude to the future and a prized spot in this year's College Football Playoff.