Oklahoma softball began the 2026 season at No. 3 in the major preseason polls. Since then, the Sooners have dropped back to fourth, fifth or sixth, depending on which top-25 poll you follow, despite a 19-2 record and a record-setting start offensively.
Some Sooner fans undoubtedly are not happy with the softball team's current national ranking, believing the team is being undervalued. Whatever the present perception is, though, Oklahoma clearly has history on its side.
Sooners in rare spot under Patty Gasso outside of top 3
At this relatively early stage of the season, the top-25 rankings are not that meaningful except to excite fan interest and offer media debate. As always, once the more competitive conference schedules begin in earnest, we're certain to see a lot of movement in the weekly national rankings, and as we've all been told, it's not how you start, but where you finish that matters, right?
Although no team has finished the season in the No. 1 position in the national rankings more times since 2000 than Oklahoma with eight times, only five times over that span have the Sooners begun the season as the preseason favorite in 2017, 2018, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
In fact, in both the 2017 and 2018 seasons, the only time other than the first or second week of the season that OU commanded the top spot in the country was at the very end after winning back-to-back Women's College World Series titles.
Oklahoma's eight national championships since 2000 (plus twice a national runner-up) -- all under head coach Patty Gasso -- leads the nation over that period, and the Sooners rank third all-time in that coveted category behind UCLA (12) and Arizona (8). The 2000 season was also Oklahoma's first year finishing the season as the nation's No. 1 team.
One distinction Oklahoma softball holds over all other teams in the college sport is it is the only team to be ranked every week of the 32-year existence of the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) poll.
The Sooners' average preseason ranking under Gasso's leadership is 6.5, compared to 7.3 at the end of the season. Since 2000, however, those numbers are even more impressive: 4.4 preseason ranking and an average top-five (5.0) ranking at season's end.
Given all the success of the past 26 seasons, it's difficult to dispute the notion that Oklahoma has earned the right so far to be named the greatest softball program of the 21st century.