The No. 1 Oklahoma softball team entered last weekend tied with No. 2 Alabama in first place in the SEC standings. The Sooners will begin this weekend, the final one in the 2026 regular season, with a two-game cushion over both the Crimson Tide and Florida.
The Sooners (46-6, 18-3) play at Texas A&M. The three-game road series will run Thursday through Saturday. Oklahoma needs just one win to clinch no worse than a share of the SEC regular-season title, which would give OU back-to-back conference championships in its first two years in the league. Two wins against the Aggies this weekend or the combination of a Sooner win and a loss by both Alabama and Florida would award the Sooners the outright championship.
What Oklahoma has to do to clinch SEC regular-season title
Alabama (44-5, 16-5) lost two of three at Tennessee last weekend after posting a 12-0 run-rule win in the series opener on Saturday. The two losses dropped the Crimson Tide into a two-way tie with the Florida Gators, who played two games with Central Florida outside of the conference last weekend.
The results of this weekend's games will determine the final seeding for the SEC Tournament next week, May 5-9, at John Cropp Stadium in Lexington, Kentucky. The only seed that is definitely set at this point is No. 15 Kentucky (1-23, 26-28), which is serving as host of the conference tournament.
Oklahoma clearly is in the driver's seat as far as the SEC regular-season championship is concerned, but Florida and Alabama are still mathematically in contention. Should it all come down to a two- or three-way tie at the top of the standings after this weekend, the tiebreakers favor Oklahoma against both teams.
Read more: SEC Power Rankings: Only one week left before it's proving time
The Sooners did not play Alabama or Florida this season, so should there be a tie with either team, the tiebreaker determination would be record vs. common opponents.
OU and Alabama swept their series against Ole Miss, Auburn and Kentucky, and both won two of three in series with Arkansas and Texas. What would give the tiebreaker to Oklahoma is runs allowed against common opponents. The Sooners allowed 43, compared to Alabama's 44 in those series.
The potential of a tiebreaker formula between Oklahoma and Florida wouldn't go that far. OU would come out ahead because of head-to-head results involving Arkansas. The Sooners took two of three from the Razorbacks. Florida lost two of three in its matchup with Arkansas this season.
The scenario that absolutely can't happen for Oklahoma this weekend is to lose all three games and the series to Texas A&M. That would tie the Aggies at the top with the Sooners, and the first tiebreaker would award the conference title to A&M.
Besides Oklahoma vs. Texas A&M, the SEC schedule on the final weekend of regular season includes Florida at Georgia, South Carolina at Alabama, Auburn at LSU, Mississippi State at Ole Miss and Arkansas at Texas.
There are currently ties in the SEC standings at second, third, fourth, fifth, eighth, ninth, 10th, 11th, 13th and 14th. The results this weekend will likely break some of those ties and change the tournament seedings, but if the season were to end today, the seedings would look like this:
No. 1 Oklahoma Sooners (18-3 conference record)
No. 2 Florida Gators (16-5)
No. 3 Alabama Crimson Tide (16-5)
No. 4 Texas Longhorns (15-6)
No. 5 Tennessee Volunteers (15-6)
No. 6 Texas A&M Aggies (15-6)
No. 7 Arkansas Razorbacks (13-8)
No. 8 Georgia Bulldogs (10-11)
No. 9 LSU Tigers (10-11)
No. 10 Mississippi State (8-13)
No. 11 Missouri Tigers (8-13)
No. 12 South Carolina Gamecocks
No. 13 Ole Miss Rebels (4-17)
No. 14 Auburn Tigers (4-17)
No. 15 Kentucky Wildcats (1-23)
The top four seeds receive byes for the first two rounds. Teams seeded No. 5 through No. 8 receive a first-round bye. At this point, it appears that Oklahoma is the only team virtually assured of a double-bye. That would mean the Sooners would not play until the third round of the tournament and be paired against the winner of the No. 8-No. 9 game, which if the season ended today, would be the winner of Georgia vs. LSU.
Oklahoma obviously swept the series with Georgia this past weekend and won two of three from LSU back in late March.
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