Just when we thought all of the 2025 college football preseason top-25 rankings had run their course, along pops up another one.
ESPN published what it called its "final SP+ preseason rankings." For those who are not familiar with what the SP+ rankings entail, the folks at ESPN describe it as a "tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency." That is a fancy way of saying it is not a projection of where things stand currently, but rather a data-driven prediction of where things will stand at the end of the season.
Media voters for the preseason Associated Press Top 25 surprised a lot of people placing Oklahoma at No. 18. If you liked that early assessment of what the Sooners can be in the 2025 season, you're really going to like where the computers at ESPN projected Oklahoma to finish out the season. The ESPN SP+ model had the Sooners at No. 15.
Sooners in top 20 of ESPN SP+
That's the good news for Sooner fans. The bad news, as it has been all along this offseason, is that seven SEC teams ranked ahead of Oklahoma and two others occupied the two spots immediately behind the Sooners. OU plays five of the SEC teams ranked higher than it in the SP+ preseason rankings, plus No. 8 Michigan during the 2025 regular season. The Sooners also play at No. 17 South Carolina.
According to the SP+ preseason model, the Sooners have the 23rd-best offensive unit, the 11th-best defense and are 31st in special teams. When you total all of that up, the ESPN computer says Oklahoma plays the most difficult schedule this season (just above Florida) and projected the Sooners' 2025 win total to be 7.5.
All of this adds up to a good-feel story heading into the 2025 season. In the end, however, it all comes down to winning games against the teams that are on the schedule, and the Sooners have some exceptionally good teams on theirs.
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