Like in the NFL, the college football news cycle seemingly has much less of an offseason than the calendar would indicate.
This is the season of lists: way-too-early and post-spring top 25, top-25 college quarterbacks, top-50 college players, top 2025 newcomer classes, and top 25 this and that. And you can add strength of schedule (a ranking of the quality and location of the opponents on a team's schedule) to the endless supply of debate generating lists that serve to feed fans' anticipation for the coming season still several months away.
Looking three-plus months ahead -- we aren't even under 100 days to go yet before the start of the 2025 season -- College Football News ranked Oklahoma as having the 10th-hardest schedule for the coming season, and that's with Michigan added this year.
Media outlet ranks Sooners' 2025 schedule as 10th-most difficult
I'm just going to come right out and say what many Sooner fans are probably thinking when they read this article. How could this season's schedule be less difficult than the one Oklahoma played a year ago?
I'm sure we don't have to remind Oklahoma football fans what a murderer's row of conference opponents -- eight of them -- the Sooners had to face in their inaugural season as a new member of the SEC. Seven of the eight conference opponents were ranked in the nation's top 25 at some point in the season and six ended the 2024 season in the Associated Press Top 25.
At regular season's end in 2024, College Football Network ranked Oklahoma's schedule as the sixth-most difficult in the country. Coincidentally, at this same time a year ago, another digital media source, College Football News, listed the Sooners with the sixth-hardest schedule ahead of the 2024 season. ESPN's Football Power Index ranked the OU 2024 strength of schedule postseason at No. 9.
The 2025 Oklahoma schedule features four nonconference opponents, with Michigan added to the mix this coming season and next. The SEC portion of the schedule, however, remains the same. Only the home team status changes.
So instead of hosting home games with Tennessee, South Carolina and Alabama this season, the Sooners will go on the road to play those teams at their place, three extremely difficult places to play in the SEC.
On the other side of the coin, the Sooners will play host this season to Auburn, Ole Miss, Missouri and LSU. And, as per usual, there is the annual rivalry game with Texas at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The order of the games will change slightly, but because of the SEC's scheduling process, it is essentially the same as in 2024.
According to College Football News' Pete Fiutak, fellow SEC member Florida has the hardest 2025 schedule, followed by Wisconsin, UCLA, Mississippi State and Arkansas. In all, six teams out of the SEC, including the Sooners, were ranked in the top 10. Alabama (7) and South Carolina (9) are the two other SEC teams that filled out the top 10.
CFN rated at Alabama as OU's toughest game on the 2025 schedule and the season opener at home against Illinois State (an FCS program) as the easiest.
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