FOX CFB analyst Joel Klatt issues his preseason top 25 with Sooners ranked ahead of 3 other SEC teams

FOX Sports college football analyst Joel Klatt this week joined the bevy of media sources who have weighed in projecting the top-25 teams to begin the 2024 college football season.

Klatt's selection of the 25 best teams to open the season is not that dissimilar from most of the other preseason polls and preview publications, but it does differ in how the teams are ordered. He has Oklahoma in the No. 15 spot, for example, but higher than two other SEC teams, LSU and Tennessee, who are ranked ahead of the Sooners in the most of the other preseason top-25 projections. OU is also ranked ahead of No. 25 Texas A&M.

Five other SEC teams -- four of which are on the 2024 Oklahoma schedule -- are still ranked ahead of OU, however, making the Sooners the sixth highest ranked SEC team in Klatt's assessment.

Ohio State jumps over Georgia as the top-ranked team in the FOX broadcaster's top 25. Texas, Oregon and Ole Miss round out the top five teams.

It might annoy some Sooner fans that USC is ranked just ahead of Oklahoma in the No. 14 spot. Lincoln Riley and the Trojans have also moved to a new and much stronger conference this season as a new member of the Big Ten . Looks like the man OU fans refer to simply as "Muleshoe" won't have things any easier than what he reportedly tried to avoid while at Oklahoma. Nevertheless, I don't recall seeing USC ranked ahead of the Sooners in very many, if any, other preseason rankings.

The SEC leads all conferences, as it does in most preseason projections, with nine top-25 teams in Klatt's poll. The Big Ten is next with seven, followed by the Big 12 with 5.

Aside from Ohio State in the top spot, the big takeaway from Klatt's preseason top 25 is ranking Oklahoma as the sixth best SEC team. That is in contrast to the SEC preseason media poll and the Coaches Poll, which came out earlier this week. Both of those polls ranked the Sooners as the eighth best team in the SEC.