Sports Illustrated releases its 2024 CFB Preseason Top 25; where is Oklahoma?

Sports Illustrated has released its 2024 Preseason Top 25, the last of the major media outlets to do so ahead of the kickoff of the new college football season

Much has changed throughout the college football landscape since the end of the 2023 season with both the Big Ten and Big 12 adding four new teams and the SEC adding college football blue bloods Oklahoma and Texas. In addition, what started out in 1998 as a two-team national championship format under the banner of the BCS and then evolved into a four-team College Football Playoff in 2014 beginning this season is now a 12-team playoff format.

What was once five power conferences is now four with the dismantlement of the Pac-12, and that consolidation is heavily reflected in all of the preseason top-25 rankings. Of the 25 teams in the Sports Illustrated preseason rankings, 14 are from either the SEC or the Big Ten.

Oklahoma ranks 14th in the Sports Illustrated Preseason Top 25, but unlike other preseason top-25 rankings by the national media, the Sooners rank sixth among the SEC teams, ahead of No. 15 LSU and No. 18 Tennessee. The SEC teams ranked ahead of OU include No. 2 Georgia, No. 3 Texas, No. 5 Alabama, No. 7 Ole Miss and No. 8 Missouri.

Brent Venables' Sooners will have plenty of opportunity to prove themselves because they will play all of the aforementioned SEC opponents except Georgia during the course of the 2024 season.

The Sports Illustrated top 25 differs from the vast majority of other preseason top-25 projections in placing Ohio State over Georgia as the top-ranked team.

Like in most every other preseason top 25 poll, the SEC leads all conferences with eight ranked teams and five in the top 10. The Big Ten is next with six teams followed by the Big 12 with five and the ACC with four.