Last offseason, one of the biggest talks around the Oklahoma Sooners, especially from national media, was their loaded schedule and how it could get in the way of rebounding from a 6-7 season. Now, it's only February, and the same narrative has already started for the 2026 college football season after the Sooners just went 10-3 and made the College Football Playoff in 2025.
Crain & Cone, a podcast from On3, this week ranked the hardest schedules for the 2026 season and gave the Sooners the fourth-toughest slate in college football behind Ohio State, Arkansas and Texas, respectively. The rest of the top 10 included Auburn, Michigan, Ole Miss, Florida, LSU and Kentucky as the rankings were flooded with SEC teams and didn't feature any team from outside the SEC or Big Ten.
On3 ranks Sooners' 2026 schedule among hardest in college football
NEW: Hardest 2026 College Football Schedules via @CrainAndCone👀
— On3 (@On3) February 10, 2026
Do you agree? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/TBwyGlNxxm
Entering Year 3 in the SEC is certainly the biggest reason for the Sooners' stacked schedule, but it also reaches another level in 2026 because of a road trip to Ann Arbor, Michigan, in Week 2 for a big-time nonconference matchup with another college football blue blood in the Wolverines, who have consistently been in the top 10 of way-too-early rankings while entering their first season under new head coach Kyle Whittingham.
The rest of the Sooners' nonconference schedule includes UTEP in their season opener on Sept. 5 in Norman and another home game against New Mexico on Sept. 19 after traveling to Michigan. Of the 16 SEC programs, OU and Texas are the only ones without an FCS opponent on their 2026 schedules.
After nonconference, the Sooners get a brutal welcome to SEC play with a trip to two-time defending conference champion Georgia on Sept. 26. That likely top-10 matchup is followed by another with Texas in the Red River Rivalry on Oct. 10.
The Sooners at least get a bye week between dealing with Georgia and Texas in back-to-back games, but that challenging one-two punch mixed with the trip to Michigan still had CBS Sports' Cody Nagel predict OU to start the season at 2-3 with losses in all three marquee games.
OU's conference road gets a little smoother the rest of the way, at least by SEC standards. But even the "easy" part of the Sooners' schedule would still be the toughest stretch they ever dealt with in the Big 12 in recent memory.
The back half of the Sooners' schedule features home games against Kentucky, South Carolina, Ole Miss and Texas A&M. Two of those teams (Ole Miss and A&M) made the CFP in 2025 and both are returning their starting quarterback. The Sooners also have more road trips to Mississippi State, Florida and Missouri.
Despite the schedule looking like a nightmare last season, too, the Sooners still went from 6-7 to 10-3 overnight and made the CFP for the first time under Brent Venables, who saved his job with that turnaround. In 2026, there's even more reason to believe the Sooners can again fight through such a schedule without getting knocked out.