Oklahoma Sooners College Football Preview 2021: What Will Happen, Season Prediction
Lincoln Riley’s Sooners lost in the 2018 Rose Bowl to a Georgia team that came within a 2nd-and-26 play from Tua Tagovailoa to DeVonta Smith of winning the national title.
They lost the 2018 Orange Bowl to an Alabama team that came within a Clemson steamroller of winning the national title, and they lost the 2019 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl to an LSU team that might have been the greatest of all-time.
No shame there. Three College Football Playoff appearances, three totally acceptable losses.
It pretty much took five perfect games to hand Riley his other defeats – all by a touchdown or less.
That’s it. It’s not like Oklahoma comes out and totally clunks, and more than that, it’s not like it doesn’t seem to find a way to fix things on the fly after losing a regular season game.
There’s a chance – to get to a whole other level – that it might be a case of Riley working his way through his first four years to get the program to just this very spot.
He’s had most of a recruiting cycle to get through, he’s benefitted in a big way from transfers, and he made one of the best hires in college football over the last several seasons in getting Alex Grinch to instantly fix a woeful defense.
Now he’s got the team, the schemes, the depth, the hand-picked players, the staff, and the schedule to get by whenever the Big 12 team on the other side has its groove going.
And he’s got all that to potentially get by an opposing powerhouse program in the College Football Playoff.
Set The Oklahoma Sooners Regular Season Win Total At … 11
Oh, but you’ve heard it all before.
This was when the Sooners would have it all together, or maybe the offense would be too much to overcome, and maybe it was Riley’s time, and …
Eventually all of that will be true.
Riley keeps getting his team close, and eventually that one break will happen. That might be now with what should be the best team yet in his fabulous run.
The schedule can’t be a problem for a team this good.
While the Alabamas and Texas A&Ms have to deal with the SEC West, and the Ohio States and Penn States have to face the Big Ten East, and the Clemsons have to handle the … uh … well, it has to handle not tripping over itself during the ACC title coronation run, Oklahoma gets a relatively manageable draw even in a much-improved Big 12.
There’s that home game against Nebraska – and no, it’s not backing out of this – and there’s game after game in conference play that could be sticky if everything isn’t clicking, but this team could be above the big gaffe.
No, this isn’t 2019 LSU or 2020 Alabama, but those two were able to get through their nasty slates just fine, and 2021 Oklahoma’s schedule isn’t anywhere near as tough.
Yeah, soon it really will be Oklahoma’s year under Lincoln Riley. That year might be 2021.
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– What You Need To Know: Offense | Defense
– Top Players | Keys To The Season
– Oklahoma Football Schedule Analysis