Sooners an upset away from being in 2024 playoff contention, says ESPN/SEC Network analyst

Paul Finebaum, who rarely had a kind word to say about Oklahoma football when Bob Stoops was head coach of the Big 12 Sooners, has jumped on the Sooner Schooner bandwagon this offseason cautioning fans not to overlook OU

Why the change? We'll probably never know for sure, but the fact that the Sooners have switched sides and are now part of the hard-nosed SEC and Finebaum is well recognized as an SEC homer and one of the biggest champions of the conference widely recognized as the best in college football has something to do with it.

Oklahoma and Texas are considered precious jewels in college football, and as the newest members of the SEC, the mother lode of college football just became even richer and more elite.

There is a general consensus among most sportswriters and broadcasters who cover college football that Georgia and Texas are two teams out of the SEC that are the most likely to make the newly expanded 12-team playoff format this season. Others out of the SEC that have been mentioned by Finebaum and others as potential playoff contenders include Alabama, Ole Miss, Missouri, LSU, Tennessee and even Oklahoma.

It's been widely reported -- even over-reported -- that Oklahoma faces the most difficult schedule of any SEC team. Largely because of that, the Sooners were picked to finish eighth this season in the SEC standings in the SEC Preseason Media Poll. There are a couple of other concerns, as well, about OU's debut season in the SEC, but the schedule is the main issue holding the Sooners back in the eyes and critical assessments of the experts.

Despite all of this Finebaum has indicated on several occasions over the past couple of months that Oklahoma is good enough to compete against every team in the SEC. And just this week, in discussing SEC teams that had a chance to make the College Football Playoff, he mentioned the Sooners as a team that could move into playoff contention if they could get a big upset along the way.

"One more school on the fringe of what I just got through saying is Oklahoma, They're an upset away from probably being in playoff contention."

- Paul Finebaum of ESPN and SEC Network

Earlier this summer, appearing as a guest on the "McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning" podcast, Finebaum said, I don't have any doubt Oklahoma is clearly on the way back (under Brent Venables). They took a bump and a hit after Lincoln Riley left. They had to reprogram the entire place...reboot it."

Finebaum was in Norman reporting for ESPN on July 1, the day Oklahoma officially became a member of the SEC and was positively moved by what he observed and the people he spoke to, including Venables. Following SEC Media Days, a couple of weeks later, Finebaum went on record projecting that the Sooners could win as many as nine games this season, which would give them a 9-3 record and probably well within the hunt for one of the six or so at-large playoff spots.

To win eight or nine games in 2024, Oklahoma is probably going to have to win four or five conference games, which is going to require more than one upset. Can Sooner Team 130 do that? The journey begins nine days from now. From that point forward, the ultimate outcome will be in their hands