After last season's wildfire of injuries that rendered a once high-powered offense stagnant and spinning its wheels, the general feeling was that things had to be better in 2025 because the Oklahoma Sooners surely couldn't get much worse.
Injuries decimated the Sooner wide receiver group and had a negative impact on the offensive line, as well as at the running back position. As a direct result, I'm not sure the best quarterback in the country could have had much success facing constant pressure and with the limited number of offensive weapons he would have had at his disposal.
Oklahoma is expected to be much-improved offensively in the 2025 season as a result of personnel additions and system adjustments made in the offseason, and the once much-maligned Sooner defense has improved every year since Brent Venables' arrival in 2021. The problem is, the other SEC teams on OU's schedule for the coming season aren't standing still and are working to get better, as well.
ESPN college football writer Bill Connelly is one of the national media experts who believes Oklahoma will be much more competitive and better offensively this season, but he also believes the Sooners will still need things to fall their way a few times to challenge at the upper echelon of the SEC.
OU will be better all around in 2025, but will still need some help to reach SEC's upper crust
"Even against a schedule featuring nine projected top-25 teams, the defense will give the Sooners a chance in most games," Connelly wrote. "The offense's improvement will determine whether they can actually win a few. The ridiculous schedule will put a ceiling on the win total, but the bar for improvement isn't particularly high."
Connelly sees Alabama, Texas and Georgia as the big dogs in the SEC this season, with LSU, Ole Miss and Tennessee closely behind. He views Oklahoma in the second tier of SEC contenders that are "a couple of breaks away" from breaking into that top tier.
Oklahoma ranked 19th among FBS teams in total defense last season. That's up from 122nd in Venables' first season as the Sooners' head coach in 2022. And with a lot of talent and experience returning for the 2025 season, many believe, including Venables himself, that this is the best OU defensive unit of the past four seasons.
With the possible exception of tight end, every position group within the Oklahoma offense should be much improved this season. And the first couple of days of preseason training camp have reinforced this assessment.
There is not a conference anywhere in college football as tough as the SEC. That Oklahoma is projected to finish 10th in the conference this season, according to the SEC Preseason Media Poll, and is likely to be ranked among the nation's top 25 teams when the Associated Press and USA Today preseason rankings come out in the coming weeks is testament to that fact.
The SEC is a league in which games are won and lost in the trenches. Like it or not, the Sooners were not strong enough, healthy enough or consistent enough last season -- particularly on the offensive front -- to compete against the tremendous defensive lines that reside in the SEC.
For four consecutive years prior to the serious drop off in 2024, the Oklahoma offense consistently averaged over 450 yards per game, almost 100 more than a year ago. And in the four seasons between 2016 and 2019, the Sooners ranked in the top-10 nationally in offensive production.
All the injuries that sidelined key OU offensive contributors last season were a prime reason for the offensive disappointment, but you can't allow a nation-leading 50 quarterback sacks and average just 24 points a game in a league as good both offensively and defensively as the SEC and expect to win many games.
Prior to Venables' being named OU head coach, Sooner fans will recall, all the finger pointing was at the leaky defense that couldn't seem to get off the field or stop anybody, and the popular belief at the time was had Oklahoma been even a little bit better on the defensive side, we might be looking at a couple more national championships. Well, now the proverbial shoe is on the other foot, and after last season, it was the Sooner offense that was in need of much help.
Things are definitely moving in the right direction for one of college football's Blue Blood programs, but it is ultimately up to the Oklahoma players on the field and the coaches outside of the white lines to validate all of the preseason hype about how close the Sooners are to competing at a high level with the top teams in the power-packed SEC.
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