Sooners' schedule disparity shows up in major way in ESPN's SEC power rankings

In case you missed it, earlier this week, ESPN released its not-too-late 2025 SEC football preview and power rankings with Oklahoma listed as a College Football Playoff long shot and positioned smack dab in the middle of the SEC power struggle, er rankings.

The ESPN preview ranked Texas, Georgia and Alabama as the frontrunners in the battle for SEC supremacy this season with LSU, Texas A&M and Ole Miss chomping at their heels.

ESPN power rankings further proof of OU's daunting schedule

Joining the Sooners as a playoff long-shot out of the SEC, based on ESPN's assessment, were Tennessee, South Carolina, Missouri and Florida. Only Tennessee out of that group, though, was higher in ESPN's SEC power rankings than Oklahoma.

ESPN also ranked new Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer as the top transfer to join the SEC this season, along with former Georgia Tech wide receiver Eric Singleton Jr., who is now at Auburn, and wide receiver Zachariah Branch, a former five-star recruit who moved from USC to Georgia. All three players were ranked in the top 10 of ESPN's top 100 college football players for 2025.

"Mateer was a massive get in the transfer portal for the Sooners, who simply couldn't score a year ago," wrote ESPN about OU heading into the 2025 season. "They were held to fewer than 20 points in seven of their 13 games. Oklahoma addressed several other needs on offense in the portal, and Venables is taking over the play-calling duties on defense."

An interesting observation in examining ESPN's power ranking of the 16 SEC teams to start the 2025 season was that five of Oklahoma's eight conference opponents this season were ranked ahead of the Sooners in the projected upper half of the SEC. Only three of the SEC teams OU will face this season were ranked in the lower half (South Carolina, Missouri and Auburn). The Sooners will dodge Florida, Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Kentucky and Mississippi State in 2025, the latter four of which ranked 13-16, respectively.

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