Oh, the smell of the college football season is in the air. We are counting down the days until the season kicks off. We are now 71 days away from the Oklahoma Sooners season opener.
One thing that fuels the anticipation for the season is preseason polls.
Pro Football Focus (subscription required) believes the Oklahoma Sooners are one of the best 15 teams in the country heading into 2023. They have the Sooners coming in at No. 13, just ahead of their bowl opponent, the Florida State Seminoles.
Brent Venables’ first season as Oklahoma’s head coach couldn’t have gone much worse, as the Sooners endured their first losing season this century. Still, there’s reason for optimism in 2023. Five of their seven losses were decided by one possession while four of them were by three points. Dillon Gabriel is back at quarterback and second among FBS signal-callers in 2022 with a 1.1% turnover-worthy play rate. – Max Chadwick PFF
Chadwick hit the nail on the head. While 2022 was disastrous, there’s plenty of optimism for 2023.
Familiarity with the schemes, especially defensively, will provide the biggest reason for a jump in performance from the Sooners.
Defense is so much about reacting. If you aren’t confident in the call or in your keys, it creates hesitancy.
A hesitant defense gets shredded, as we saw last season. Oklahoma being more comfortable in the scheme should eliminate that hesitancy, hopefully leading to a defense that plays fast and makes plays. There should be a pretty decent jump on the defensive side of the ball with more familiarity, but also with an improved defensive roster.
Offensively, they were pretty good last season but have to clean some things up on third and fourth down and in the red zone.
The pass catchers lack experience, and there isn’t a bonafide go-to player. That much has been well publicized, but the run game and the offensive line could actually be better. Again, the players being more comfortable in Jeff Lebby’s offense should help.
Returning players having more familiarity will allow them to better integrate the transfer portal acquisitions and 2023 recruiting class, creating better depth across the board.
All in all, there should be great expectations for the Sooners this season. Not national title chances, but double-digit wins and an appearance in the conference title game are very much attainable.
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