With the month of July comes the rise of hot and humid temperatures throughout the United States, but also rising anticipation of the new college football season.
On July 4, the United State of America proudly honored its independence and celebrated the 249th anniversary of our great country. It also marked Day 58 in the countdown to the start of the 2025 college football season, which I can assure you is of equal, if not greater, reverence and relevance to the faithful of Oklahoma football.
The red, white and blue colors displayed proudly and prominently nationwide on the 4th of July in celebration of our nation's birthday and strikingly featured on the United States flag are symbolic of the values upon which our country was founded and define our future growth and continuing success as a free nation.
What does all of this have to do with Sooner football, you ask? After all, Oklahoma's school colors are crimson and cream, not red, white and blue. We all know that red, particularly of the crimson variety, is a rallying cry and unifying force of Sooner Nation, but it also offers some foretelling signs within the 2025 schedule, along with the two other complementary colors of Old Glory, that this could be a special season for Oklahoma football.
Red is the color most associated with OU's football success
Red is the most obvious of the three symbolic Americana colors that has been associated with Oklahoma football success throughout the team's history, but in grand form for the past seven-plus decades. Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium is saturated in crimson for every Oklahoma home game, including 159 consecutive sellouts.
The dedicated, crimson-clad Sooner fans that pack the Palace on the Prairie for every OU home game are a giant reason the Sooners have lost just 15 of 160 home games the last 26 seasons, one of the top two or three winning percentages (.906) in college football over than span. The Sooners will host seven opponents at home this season, including conference games with Auburn, Ole Miss, Missouri and LSU.
Two of Oklahoma's nonconference opponents feature red as their school color: Illinois State Redbirds (red and white) and Temple Owls (cherry red and white). The Illinois State game is in Norman and kicks off the season on Aug. 30. The Sooners will travel to Philadelphia to play Temple on Sept. 13, where OU should be the better of the two teams dressed or trimmed in red and pick up a fourth consecutive win to begin the 2025 season.
Alabama is another team on the OU schedule that proudly dons crimson. For several compelling reasons, though, this game, at Alabama on Nov. 15, is one that few people expect the team in Sooner crimson to come out on top.
The color white also will play a role in Sooners' 2025 success
The traditional road white uniforms (trimmed in crimson, of course, with crimson lettering) is what the Sooners will be wearing in most, if not all, of their five away games this season, including the annual rivalry game with Texas at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Oklahoma is just 6-8 in true road games in the three seasons Brent Venables has been head coach and 7-10 when you include the neutral site game against Texas.
The Sooners have three critical road conference games this season, plus the Texas game. OU will play at South Carolina, at Tennessee and at Alabama. South Carolina and Tennessee both won by double digits at OU a year ago, and Texas routed the Sooners 34-3.
By definition, white is the absence of color. Oklahoma suffered an absence of scoring in five road games last season, averaging just 15.1 points a game. Fans are hoping that the Sooners' offensive additions and adjustments will wield a much better scoring output in 2025, giving Oklahoma a good chance to come away with a much better road mark than the 1-5 record of last season.
The color blue comes into play early and pivotally as a season tone-setter
Michigan, known to fans everywhere by the sobriquet Big Blue, is the winningest team in the history of college football and will make its first-ever trip to Norman, Oklahoma, on the second weekend of the season. This game will be the marquee game in all of college football on Sept. 6.
It is the most important game of the 2025 season for Oklahoma in that it will set the tone for the rest of the season. And if the Sooners can defeat the Wolverines, it not only will provide a huge momentum boost, but also a solid read on what we can expect from Oklahoma Team 131 as the season progresses.
One other OU opponent, the Kent State Golden Flashes, feature blue prominently in their school colors.
If you factor all of this together and toss it into a blender, the colors red, white and blue should play a positive role in helping deliver at least seven Oklahoma wins this season. But an eight, and even a nine-win season, is not out of the question, depending on how all of the chips fall.
Here's to the power of the Red, White and Blue.
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