Like it or not, it is entirely possible that Oklahoma could be much improved on offense and be a better, more balanced football team in 2026, but still fall short of its 10-win season of a year ago.
The Sooners faced a brutal schedule last season in their second as a member of the SEC, but the 2026 slate of opponents appears to be even more daunting. The ESPN Preseason Football Power Index ranks Oklahoma's 2026 schedule as the country's second-most difficult. What makes it even more so this year is its front-loaded structure coupled with the fact that the SEC has expanded the conference schedule to nine games from the eight of previous seasons.
There's a reason the SEC, top to bottom, is widely anointed as the best conference in college football, which is also why 12 SEC teams are ranked in the ESPN FPI Top 25 and 14 of the 16 hardest 2026 schedules belong to teams out of the SEC.
"That's what our conference looks like," Brent Venables said at SEC Media Days. "Each and every week, you're not going to sneak up on anybody. Nobody's going to look past Oklahoma. We're going to bring out the best in everybody. Something our guys are really looking forward to the challenge, particularly early in the season."
The difficult schedule has been used by his players, he said, as a motivational tool and rallying cry during offseason workouts.
Read more: Oklahoma's nightmare schedule has Brent Venables thinking the opposite
Oklahoma's offense is expected to be better in most every area in the coming season, along with a defense that should remain elite under Venables' direction. Those two elements alone are enough to position the Sooners as a legitimate SEC title contender, if not national championship contender, in the 2026 season.
What should be an even more competitive Oklahoma team this season is going to get tested right out of the gate, though, when the Sooners travel to Ann Arbor, Michigan, on the second weekend of the season to do battle against the Wolverines, ranked No. 15 in the ESPN Preseason Football Index Top 25 and just three years removed from a national championship.
And it gets even more onerous in terms of the degree of difficulty in the ensuing weeks, as the Sooners go to play between the hedges against reigning SEC champion and No. 5 Georgia for Game 4, followed by the annual Red River Rivalry game with No. 2 Texas at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas in Game 5. That's three blue-blood opponents in the first five games of the season, and all away from Norman.
Sooners' start to the 2026 season is especially daunting, but the schedule offers some early relief
Ever since OU's 2026 football schedule was first released back in December 2025, Venables' approach has been to embrace the difficult opening as an opportunity and not the problem that many are making of it.
While acknowledging that it would be a difficult opening slate of games, Venables said it's also very exciting. "It's going to bring out the best in everybody," the Sooners' head coach has said several times this spring. "We talk about what's in front of us a lot, and you don't run from it, you run to it."
Oklahoma also has non-conference home games against UTEP and New Mexico in the opening five games, but the possibility of starting out 3-2 or 2-3 a little over a third of the way through the season after navigating through that unfortunate opening gauntlet is very real and of great concern to a number of college football experts.
As difficult as the opening stretch is, there is a bit of a silver lining. By moving the season opener against UTEP from Saturday to Friday night, Sept. 4, the Sooners will gain a extra day of preparation ahead of Michigan. Also, they have a bye week between the game at Georgia on Sept. 26 and the rivalry with Texas on Oct. 12.
The Sooners lost just two games in the regular season a year ago and three overall, so two or three losses five games into the schedule could be very damaging to OU's lofty postseason goals, especially considering that the Sooners' remaining seven games, including five against teams ranked in the ESPN Top 25, are far from a piece of cake.
On the other hand, if Oklahoma is able to come through those opening five game with a 4-1 record, the Sooners would be in excellent position to control their own destiny in making a strong case for a second consecutive trip to the College Football Playoff.
After the initial five-game opening to the season, Oklahoma has home games with Kentucky, No. 23 South Carolina, No. 14 Ole Miss and No. 11 Texas A&M, and on the road at Mississippi State, No. 18 Florida and No. 21 Missouri.
Like every other team at the FBS level, Oklahoma will play a 12-game regular-season schedule in 2026, but there is little question that the five-game stretch over the opening month and a half is the most important and will go a long way toward determining the ultimate season outcome.
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