The Big 12 has announced the kickoff time for its championship game on Saturday, December 4th.
Big 12 title game will kickoff Dec. 4 at noon ET on ABC
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) September 22, 2021
If Oklahoma does reach its fifth consecutive Big 12 title game, Sooners fans must once again roll out of bed and grab the tv remote before the 11:00 a.m. Central Time kickoff.
But will Oklahoma be there?
It feels ridiculous to raise the question before conference play has even started. Virtually every media outlet tabbed the Sooners Big 12 champions during the preseason and those that didn’t at least project them to make the title game.
But Oklahoma possesses zero “quality” wins after completing its nonconference schedule. Meanwhile, West Virginia – Oklahoma’s opponent on Saturday – just knocked off Virginia Tech 27-21. And Kansas State joins the Sooners and the Cyclones in the AP Top 25 after winning two of its first three games by three possessions.
The point I’m trying to make is that Oklahoma remains the consensus favorite to win the championship because of what they accomplished in 2020. Not for what they’ve accomplished in 2021.
If the Sooners don’t start pulling away in Big 12 play, analysts will be forced to throw their roses elsewhere.
I’ve got to be honest, I thought Oklahoma would take Nebraska to the woodshed. They struggled to move the ball with efficiency all day long, allowing Nebraska to stay in the game. They were No. 1 last week, so they’ll stay at the top here but their stock is dropping. –Schuyler Callihan, si.com
As 2020 showed, however, it isn’t always how you start but how you finish. The Oklahoma Sooners looked dead in the water after starting Big 12 play with two losses to Kansas State and Iowa State. The Sooners handled the rest of the schedule and got help along the way from the rest of the conference, finding themselves in the title game, and winning their sixth straight conference championship.
Have the Sooners already gotten their lackluster start out of the way for 2021? Are they now ready to roll with a couple of sluggish games out of the way? Only time will tell. Despite the close wins where they didn’t look as good as they could, the Sooners are still the favorite in a conference that looks pretty deep aside from Kansas.
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