Oklahoma Sooners news: Historical SEC change, Lane Johnson NFL Top 100, Mateer's new NIL deal

Oklahoma Sooners news for Friday, Aug. 22, 2025
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Historical SEC change

The SEC on Thursday announced a historical change by switching from eight conference football games to nine in a season starting in 2026. The Big Ten and Big 12 already played nine conference games, but until the College Football Playoff recently announced it would use strength of schedule as a more important metric to decide the field, there was no need for the SEC to increase its members already difficult schedules.

The new SEC model will include three opponents that teams will play every year, meaning Oklahoma will have to add two more annual rivals to go along with Texas. The other six slots will rotate where every SEC teams faces off every two years.

On top of an extra SEC game increasing strength of schedule, teams must also play at least one team from a different Power Four conference or Notre Dame during their nonconference slate, so life is about to get extremely difficult for the Sooners.

Lane Johnson NFL Top 100 Players

Philadelphia Eagles offensive tackle Lane Johnson became the seventh former Sooner to be included in the NFL Top 100 Players of 2025. Johnson jumped 18 spots in the rankings compared to last year from No. 41 to No. 23.

Johnson joined fellow Sooners Creed Humphrey (93), Joe Mixon (58), Baker Mayfield (50), Trent Williams (45), Nik Bonitto (38) and CeeDee Lamb (35) on the list. Johnson's teammate, quarterback Jalen Hurts, should also be way up on the list as the regning Super Bowl MVP.

John Mateer's new NIL deal

OU quarterback John Mateer was one of nine college football players to sign an NIL deal with Beats by Dre for the 2025 season. Mateer's new deal was done exactly how NIL should be done. He appeared in commercials as part of the endorsement deal, and to top it off, he used his new NIL deal to gift his entire team with OU headphones in the perfect way.

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