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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/usffan on 2025-08-03 15:25:03+00:00.
The cumulative link to the preseason rankings can be found here.
Oklahoma (high = 8, low = 31) is #20 in the countdown, and yes, that means that the SEC has more teams in the top 20 (10) than every other conference combined (9). That also means that Oklahoma is projected to be the 20th best team in the country and also in the bottom half of their own conference. A team that won 14 conference championships this century traded that in for a boatload of cash and whatever the future will hold, but it almost certainly won’t include 14 SEC championships by 2050. Brent Venables enters his 4th season as head coach on one of the hottest seats in the country, having led the Sooners to their 2nd losing season in his 3 years here, something no coach has done since John Blake. At least he kept their active bowl streak going at 26, which is the second longest one in CFB behind only Georgia, losing to Navy in the Armed Forces Bowl and extending his own personal bowl losing streak to all 3 of Oklahoma’s appearances. He’s going to need to do more than make their 27th consecutive bowl to see year 5.
Roster outlook
Oklahoma really should have all the ingredients for a successful season. They return the 10th most production in FBS, including the #6 ranked offense. That includes QB Michael Hawkins, who started the Armed Forces Bowl, leading rusher Jovantae Barnes and the only WR to catch more than 2 TDs all season, Deion Burks, which sounds awful until you realize that Oklahoma only had 16 total passing TDs all season. Gone is season-long starting QB Jackson Arnold (don’t worry, Sooner fans, you’ll get a chance to see him again in your SEC opener!) as is their WR with the most yardage receiving all season, J. J. Hester to Kentucky (not currently on the schedule). Venables went out and added talent like his job depended on it, bringing in the #17 national recruiting class and #12 portal class in the country. But much like mentioned above, the challenge is that those are still only good for the #10 and #7 classes in the SEC, respectively. The biggest add is Washington State QB John Mateer, though 1A is probably his OC Ben Arbuckle. They also raided Berkeley to get RB Jaydn Ott and WR Josiah Martin. While the defense was stout, they did add Florida State DL Marvin Jones, Jr.
Schedule and outlook
The OOC starts with a Wolverine sandwich, where the bread (Illinois State and a trip to Philly to take on Temple) is filled with a prime-time game hosting Michigan for their first trip ever to Norman. They then host Jackson Arnold and Auburn before closing out the OOC hosting Kent State. If Oklahoma gets through that start 5-0, they’ll head into the most anticipated Red River Rivalry in quite a few years against almost certainly #1 Texas. But if a 3-2 Sooners team rolls into Dallas and gets whipped, Venables might not survive the trip back home. The remainder of the schedule (at South Carolina, Ole Miss, at Tennessee, at Alabama, Missouri and LSU) contains exactly 1 team ranked below the Sooners here, so they will likely have to overperform expectations just to keep pace with last season. That really is a tough row to hoe…