The national media has forgotten about the Oklahoma Sooners. As the college football season edges nearer, popular podcasters and pundits are dishing out their preseason predictions, with the main talking points being who’s going to make the College Football Playoff and who will be a national championship contender. All of these discussions seem to have one thing in common: OU is not a serious contender.
This is a good thing. Oklahoma fans can remember the days of Lincoln Riley, when OU’s preseason rankings always seemed to have the Sooners in the top five. As flattering as it was, it always invited a lot of negativity from not only OU fans, but the rest of the country. Talks of how OU did not deserve it, how it would lose in the playoffs again, and a strange notion that there was some kind of bias involved when ranking Oklahoma.
Sooners no longer have the spotlight despite CFP appearance
That sentiment has changed. The national spotlight has swept past Norman as if it sits on the shoulder, broken down on the great highway of the SEC. There are no grand expectations. There is no “rat poison” from the media, as Nick Saban would call it. This is where Brent Venables wants his program.
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In years past, the country was waiting for Oklahoma to do something, whether that be good or bad. Waiting for the Sooners to get upset. Waiting for that “Heisman moment” or statement win. Now, Venables has his best squad since becoming head coach, and few outside of Sooner Nation realize it. Now, they have the luxury of not playing under a microscope. That burden has been passed on.
Venables will gladly let the other programs drive their fancy sports cars bought and paid for by billionaire alumni on the road to the College Football Playoff. Oklahoma will be right there, lurking outside the camera’s view, taking care of business. When the laurels are handed out at the end of the season, no one will say Oklahoma didn’t earn it, and that’s how Sooner fans like it.
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