Oklahoma will open the 2026 college football season on Friday as the No. 10 team in the Associated Press Top 25 rankings. Yet, the Sooners are projected to finish seventh in their own conference.
Something's got to give here. We are going to find out fairly quickly if the Sooners are truly deserving of a top-10 national ranking to begin the season. The first five games in Oklahoma's 2026 schedule are against teams ranked in the top 25, including two in the top five (No. 3 Georgia and No. 5 Texas).
Oklahoma's 2025 schedule was ranked as one of the hardest in the country, and things don't get any better this season with the ESPN Football Power Index ranking the Sooners' 2026 schedule the second-most difficult among FBS teams, behind only Arkansas.
Four SEC teams besides Oklahoma are ranked in the top 10 of the both the preseason AP and Coaches polls (Georgia, Texas, Texas A&M and Ole Miss), and the Sooners will face all four this season.
Every college football head coach will tell you that the most important game on the schedule is the next one. But the truth is, not all games or opponents are created equal. Some teams pose greater challenges than others and circumstances throughout the course of a season can have an impact on the importance of one game as opposed to another.
With the new season kicking off for most FBS teams this week, here is how we rank the Oklahoma 12-game regular-season schedule in terms of importance to the overall season:
12. Oklahoma vs. UTEP, Sept. 4
This is probably the only sure-fire win the Sooners will have all season. Oklahoma is 5-0 all-time against UTEP with an average winning score of 50-8. The Miners have won just five games in the past two seasons as members of Conference USA. This will be their first season in the Mountain West, where they are projected to finish near the bottom of the league.
11. Oklahoma vs. New Mexico, Sept. 19
This game would have been a lot more competitive before New Mexico returning starting quarterback Jack Layne suffered a season-ending injury. The Lobos were co-champions of the Mountain West a year ago and were considered among the league favorites this season before the injury to Layne.
10. Oklahoma vs. Kentucky, Oct. 17
This game would have been a lot more interesting had Mark Stoops, younger brother to Bob Stoops, still been the Kentucky head coach. The younger Stoops brother was replaced this season by former Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein. Former Oklahoma running back Jovantae Barnes transferred to Kentucky after last season to add intrigue and former OU receiver Nic Anderson is also there.
The Wildcats are projected to finish 14th in the SEC this season after tying for 11th last season with an overall mark of 5-7 and 2-6 in the conference. Some analysts believe the Wildcats could be one of the surprise teams in the conference this season.
9. Oklahoma vs. South Carolina, Oct. 31
This season marks a return to Norman for South Carolina and head coach Shane Beamer, a former OU assistant under Lincoln Riley. OU and South Carolina have met twice as SEC foes, with each team winning on the other's home field. The Gamecocks won 35-9 the last time they visited Norman, but this is a much different Oklahoma team than in 2024, and South Carolina has digressed since then. As long as the Gamecocks have LaNorris Sellers at quarterback, though, they can still be dangerous on offense.
8. Oklahoma at Mississippi State, Oct. 24
Another OU reunion is in store when the Sooners visit Starkville, Mississippi, on Oct. 24 for a first-ever meeting with Mississippi State. The Bulldogs' head coach is former Oklahoma offensive coordinator and OU alum Jeff Lebby.
The fact that this game is being played at Mississippi State, another difficult SEC road environment, makes it a potential trap game for the Sooners. Mississippi State was just 1-7 in the SEC last season and is projected to finish 15th in the conference this season, but the Bulldogs are a different team when playing at home among the deafening sound of the tradition-laden cowbells.
7. Oklahoma at Missouri, Nov. 29
Oklahoma holds a significant 68-25-5 advantage over its longtime rival from the Big 12 and all of that conference's previous iterations, but the 2026 game is being played at Missouri, where the Sooners always seem to have difficulty, whether they win or lose. Oklahoma has lost three of the last five times it has played in Columbia.
6. Oklahoma vs. Texas A&M, Nov. 21
These two teams, who played every season from 1996 to 2011 as members of the Big 12, haven't played each other since 2012 in a postseason pairing in the Cotton Bowl. The fact that this game will be played in Norman as the final home game of the season is huge for Oklahoma. The Sooners have prevailed over the Aggies the last seven times A&M has played at OU and in 13 of 15 games all-time.
5. Oklahoma vs. Ole Miss, Nov. 14
Oklahoma is winless in three games against Ole Miss, including in each of the last two season. This will be the second straight season the Sooners have hosted the Rebels. OU lost last year's meeting 34-26 after taking a 36-24 lead late in the third quarter.
Ole Miss is projected to be one of the teams contending with Georgia and Texas for the SEC title this season. The Rebels won't have Lane Kiffin as head coach. He left to take the LSU job after last season, but they will have Trindad Chambliss, who some consider the best quarterback in the SEC, back again this season.
4. Oklahoma at Florida, Nov. 7
Believe it or not, Oklahoma and Florida have met on the gridiron just two times in history and never in the regular season. The two teams split postseason bowl games in 2008 (Florida winning 24-14 in the BCS National Championship) and 2020 (OU winning 55-20 in the Cotton Bowl). This will be the Sooners' first visit to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, the venue the Florida fans affectionately refer to as "The Swamp." Texas lost a game there last season, and this should be a very big challenge for the Sooners this season in Jon Sumrall's first season as Florida head coach.
3. Red River Rivalry vs. Texas in Dallas, Oct. 7
The annual rivalry game with Texas is always an important game on the Oklahoma schedule for fairly obvious reasons. For many years, the winner of this game became the front-runner to win the Big 12 championship.
Texas has won the first two meetings as members of the SEC, but the Sooners own a 17-10 advantage since 2000. If Oklahoma were to prevail this year, it no doubt would be one of the biggest wins of the season and a major resume boost, but because of where it falls in the 2026 schedule, it wouldn't, in my view, be the most important game of the season.
2. Oklahoma at Georgia, Sept. 26
"Between the Hedges" in Athens, Georgia, is another historic college football venue where Oklahoma has never played, and it hasn't been a welcome place for 36 of the last 37 visiting teams to play at Georgia's Sanford Stadium. Georgia lost 24-21 at home to Alabama last season. Before that, the Bulldogs had not lost a home game since 2019, a string of 33 consecutive wins. They are now 36-1 over that time span.
This would be a huge win for Oklahoma on multiple levels if it was fortunate enough to pull off the upset. First of all, it would make the Sooners 4-0, or at worst 3-1, going into the game with Texas. More importantly, it would provide a major boost of confidence for a team that will have faced the hardest part of its schedule in the first five games.
1. Oklahoma at Michigan, Sept. 12
Michigan is the first of four different college football towns Oklahoma will visit this season for the first time. The Sooners and the Michigan Wolverines will go toe to toe in Week 2 of the season in a matchup of two college football blue bloods. This year's game is the second of a home-and-home series that began last season with Oklahoma defeating the Wolverines 24-13 in Norman.
Oklahoma's full season fate will not be determined by the outcome of this game, but it definitely will set the tone for the series of big games to immediately follow and provide a huge confidence boost that could make the difference in the tougher challenges straight ahead in the schedule.
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