The moment of truth is here; are Sooners and their fans ready?

The moment of truth is finally upon us. On Saturday night, Oklahoma will play its first conference game as a member of the Southeastern Conference.

The Sooners (3-0) will host No. 6-ranked Tennessee in a nationally televised primetime game to open the conference season for both teams Tennessee is the first of an 8-game conference schedule for Oklahoma that will include four other SEC teams currently ranked among the top-10 teams nationally.

A one-game sample won't answer the question of whether the Sooners are ready to contend or compete effectively with the best teams in the SEC. One full season may not be a meaningful measure of that. But with the conference schedule Oklahoma has to navigate through this season, if the Sooners can potentially win more than half of their eight SEC games, that has to be considered a successful season -- not just by OU standards but by any standard.

Of course, that is easier said than done, and the way Oklahoma has played, particularly on offense, in its first three games, it doesn't exude a lot of confidence that the Sooners will be able to move the ball effectively or efficiently against SEC teams that feature some of the best defense in college football.

The irony is that several years ago, the belief was that Oklahoma's high-powered offense was more than good enough to compete in the SEC. All along, in the build up to the official move to the SEC, the one glaring issue that was believed to be the Sooners' kryptonite in their ability compete and contend in the SEC was a defense that was among the worst in college football. In 2022, for example, Brent Venables maiden voyage as head coach at Oklahoma, the Sooners ranked 122nd out of 131 FBS teams in total defense and 119th in pass defense. That same season, OU ranked 13th in total offense and 10th in rushing offense.

As OU prepares to take on Tennessee this weekend in its SEC conference opener, the numbers and rankings on offense and defense for Oklahoma have totally reversed themselves. The revamped Sooner defense is now leading the way in terms of serving as the team strength, while the offense has become inconsistent and unpredictable, essentially leaving OU in the same predicament and under the same criticism it was previously, albeit for different reasons.

Entering Week 4 of the 2024 college football season, Oklahoma ranks a highly uncharacteristic 108th in the country in total offense, 114th in passing offense (the Sooners have yet to throw for more than 200 yards this season) and, even worse, 110th in third-down conversions on offense (13 out of 42, 31 percent).

Sorry to say, that's not going to get the job done in the SEC -- or in any Power Four conference, for that matter.

So, is Oklahoma ready for the SEC? On paper as well as on the field so far this season, the answer appears to be "no." But the SEC is a 16-team league. The Sooners were projected to finish this season in the middle of the pack in the SEC standings. OU is going to win games in the SEC, but for right now, the preseason prediction by members of the media that cover SEC teams is probably right where it should be. Oklahoma is probably good enough to hold its own against the lower half of the conference, but probably isn't quite there yet against the top four or five top teams in the SEC.

We're going to get the opportunity, though, over the next two months to see exactly where the Sooners stand in their readiness to compete against the best teams in the best conference in college football.

"You can't keep a good dog down," as the saying goes, and I suspect, whatever happens, a team with Oklahoma's high standards and championship mindset won't stay down for very long.