What does No. 16 ranking in AP's initial top-25 ranking for 2024 mean for Sooners?

The Associated Press Preseason College Football Top 25 has been released and has the Oklahoma Sooners ranked 16th in its initial poll of the 2024 season.

This may not be much of a surprise, but certainly is a bit disheartening, for Sooner football fans, given that most all of the preseason projections by college football media have OU in the 13 to 16 range to start the new season, Oklahoma's first in the almighty SEC.

The Sooners' welcome to the SEC includes one of the most brutal conference schedules in the entire country. Of the eight conference games on the 2024 Oklahoma schedule, six are against teams ranked ahead of the Sooners in the AP Top 25.

Georgia, with 46 of the 62 first-place votes, sits atop the initial AP Top 25 rankings of the season, with Ohio State (15) and Oregon (1) in the No. 2 and 3 spots. Then comes No. 4 Texas, No. 5 Alabama and No. 6 Ole Miss (all three of whom will match up with Oklahoma this season). Notre Dame, Penn State, Michigan and Florida State round out the top 10 teams.

Of course, this is just a preseason ranking. Most of these teams will likely finish somewhere among the top 25 teams at season's end, but because many of these teams, especially in the SEC, will go against each other head to head during the course of the 2024 season, the order is certain to change as the season progresses.

The difficulty in being ranked outside of the top 10 to begin the new season is that you must climb over a number of teams to move up, but it can also prove to be an opportunity, like in the case of the Sooners, with games against opponents ranked ahead of you.

The Sooners' No. 16 ranking in the preseason AP poll mirrors that of the initial Coaches Poll for 2024.

Oklahoma finished last season ranked 15th in the final AP Top 25 after beginning the season ranked 20th. Over the past decade, the Sooners' have been ranked in the preseason AP Top 25 every season, with an average ranking of No. 8. average preseason ranking in the AP Top 25 is No. 8.

This is the 89th year of the Associated Press college football poll, and the 67th time Oklahoma has begun the season as a top-25 team.