Oklahoma football Team 131 has submitted its resume and now awaits the decision of the College Football Playoff selection committee to see where and who the Sooners will be playing in the postseason.
That decision will come this Sunday. The one thing we know with great certainty at this point is that Oklahoma will play its next game as part of the College Football Playoff and that game will either take place at the Palace on the Prairie in Norman or at another campus site. Those details will not become clear until Sunday.
Return trip to Tuscaloosa not out of the question for Oklahoma in CFP scenarios
Oklahoma currently occupies the No. 8 spot in the CFP rankings, which is the final spot to host a home game in the opening round of the playoff. If the playoff started today, based on the results of the fifth rankings released, the Sooners would host No. 9 Alabama.
TEXAS TECH INTO THE CFP BRACKET TOP 4 🔥 pic.twitter.com/9mCJ4G2D0F
— ESPN (@espn) December 3, 2025
Because half of the teams that currently make up the top 12 spots in the rankings are involved in conference championship games this weekend, we know that the current rankings will not remain exactly the same. The Sooners have held down the No. 8 seed for the past three weeks. The previous two weeks, Notre Dame was slotted at No. 9, but Alabama and Notre Dame changed places this week as a result of Bama's Iron Bowl win over Auburn.
Regardless of what happens in the conference titles games this weekend, the three teams immediately ahead of the Sooners in the CFP rankings (Oregon, Ole Miss and Texas A&M) have just one loss and are not playing in a conference championship game. And the loser of the Big Ten Championship between No. 1 and unbeaten Ohio State and No. 2 and unbeaten Indiana is not likely to fall out of the top four seeds. This means Oklahoma is not likely to climb any higher in the rankings, but dropping down out of the No. 8 spot is a real possibility.
The pivotal games this weekend as far as the Sooners are concerned are the SEC title game matchup between Alabama and Georgia, and the Big 12 championship pitting No. 4 Texas Tech and No. 11 BYU. If BYU were to upset Texas Tech, the Cougars could conceivably jump over Notre Dame into the No. 9 spot, which could send them to Norman to face Oklahoma. Even with one loss and a potential Big 12 championship, though, that would seem to be as high as BYU could advance given the comparative metrics between OU and the Cougars.
The bigger concern, though, from the OU perspective, would be if Alabama was to defeat Georgia for a second time this season. Given that scenario, the Crimson Tide would likely move ahead of the idle Sooners in the final CFP rankings despite OU's head-to-head win over Bama in the regular season. Just how high the selection committee would advance the Tide is simply conjecture at this point, but it is not unrealistic that Oklahoma and Alabama could simply trade seed lines, which would send the Sooners back to Tuscaloosa for a problematic second 2025 showdown.
There doesn't appear to be any scenario that will keep Oklahoma out of the 12-team playoff field. The issue is whether the Sooners will host an opening-round game. Barring total chaos on Championship Saturday, how Alabama fares against Georgia would appear to be the biggest threat to OU's home-field status in the playoff. Even a close Bama loss could spell trouble for the Sooners.