Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Never miss a game this season with our downloadable 2022 Nebraska Cornhuskers football schedule for your smartphone.
Never miss a game this season with our College Wire downloadable 2022 Nebraska Cornhuskers football schedule. Use it as wallpaper for your lock screen on your smartphone.
Also, please share it with friends so they have the schedule with them at all times too!
Download the 2022 Cornhuskers football schedule here.
Contact/Follow us @CornhuskersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Nebraska news, notes, and opinion.
[listicle id=3364]
Where do the Oklahoma Sooners and their 2022 opponents rank in Athlon Sports 1-131 projections for the 2022 college football season?
The Oklahoma Sooners open the 2022 college football season in 44 days when they host the UTEP Miners. This year’s season opener carries quite a bit more weight and anticipation than perhaps years past as the Sooners usher in a new era of Oklahoma Football under Brent Venables.
It also marks the start of a new era of offense with Jeff Lebby taking the helm. Lebby is one of the best offensive coordinators in college football and will bring a new look to the Oklahoma offense.
Here’s how Brent Venables described the future of Oklahoma football under his leadership.
Brent Venables. 🗣️
"We will employ an exciting, fast, explosive and diverse offense, combined with a physical, punishing, relentless, suffocating defense." 🔥#OUDNA | #BoomerSooner pic.twitter.com/ELaW0JFQIQ
— 𝕆𝕂𝕃𝔸ℍ𝕆𝕄𝔸-𝕍𝕊-𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝕎𝕆ℝ𝕃𝔻 (@soonergridiron) December 6, 2021
To prepare you for the 2022 college football season, Athlon Sports released their projections on how they think the 2022 season will go with their 1-131 rankings. Here’s how the Oklahoma Sooners and their opponents for the 2022 season ranked.
College Football News predicted each game for the Oklahoma Sooners in 2022. Where do they see OU stumbling?
Under two months from the Oklahoma Sooners season opener against the UTEP Miners and the time for predictions and prognostications has arrived.
Eager to bounce back from their disappointing 2021 season and open a new chapter of Oklahoma football, Brent Venables will be looking to build upon the foundation set by Bob Stoops and Lincoln Riley.
The folks over at College Football News predicted every game in the Big 12 and who would make the conference championship game. How did the Sooners fare in their 2022 predictions? Let’s take a walk through their schedule and see how College Football News predicted each game this season.
How does ESPN’s Football Power Index project the Oklahoma Sooners’ schedule to play out in 2022.
Heading into the 2022 college football season, the Oklahoma Sooners are looking to return to the top of the Big 12 mountain. One of the favorites to contend for the conference title, the Sooners will have to avoid losses in several touch matchups to return to their place of prominence among their conference foes.
In each of the last two seasons, the Lincoln Riley-led Sooners dropped a pair of conference games. In 2020, it was Iowa State and Kansas State that upended the Sooners early in the year. In 2021, Baylor and Oklahoma State got the better of Oklahoma at the end of the season.
Though Oklahoma made it to the Big 12 title game, and won it, in 2020, it needed a lot of help to get there after its two early losses.
Just under two months to the start of the 2022 season opener against UTEP, ESPN’s Football Power Index updated its latest win projections. Let’s take a look at how the Sooners are projected to fare in 2022. Like last year, we’ll update this before the opener and throughout the season.
247Sports shared 10 of their “boldest predictions” for the 2022 season and several of them left a lot to be desired for the Oklahoma Sooners.
We’re under three months away from the start of the 2022 college football season, making this time of the year the time to get a little crazy with some old prognostications.
With only spring ball to provide context about how we feel about certain teams across the country, some educated guesses are required to predict how the 2022 season will transpire. And sometimes you put it all on the line with bold predictions.
Well, Brad Crawford of 247Sports took it a bit further and provided his “10 boldest predictions” for the 2022 college football season. And several of the predictions have a Sooners’ twist.
First, Crawford takes a wild stab with Nebraska starting the season 5-0 and beating Oklahoma in the Sooners trip to Lincoln. The Cornhuskers were a college football darling after being dubbed “the best three-win team in college football history” in 2021.
Sure, the two sides played a close game in 2021 with Oklahoma coming out on top 23-16, but do all those close losses signify that Nebraska will be a better team in 2022? Crawford thinks so.
Not to apply any additional pressure on Scott Frost this season, but Nebraska’s late-September game against Oklahoma in Lincoln is arguably the most important of his coaching career up to this point. Frost’s contract buyout changes significantly Oct. 1 according to new language and that’s a barometer game for which he’ll be judged moving forward against a former Big 12 rival. There’s a good chance the Huskers will be 3-0 going into that one if new quarterback Casey Thompson is the real deal and Nebraska is able to take advantage of a soft early-season slate. With an open week before Big Ten foe Indiana coming out of the Oklahoma game, pencil in the Huskers as 5-0 and the talk of the conference going to Rutgers Oct. 7 as a bold prediction. – Crawford, 247Sports
Casey Thompson was solid in the first half against Oklahoma last year helping the Longhorns jump out to a big lead after two Spencer Rattler turnovers. However, is he going to be a better player with Nebraska than he was with Texas?
He’s solid, but he won’t have Xavier Worthy to throw to or Bijan Robinson to hand the ball of to, which will make life more difficult for the one-time Texas quarterback.
How do the Oklahoma Sooners and their 2022 opponents rank in ESPN’s updated SP+ ratings?
It’s projection season, and the Oklahoma Sooners are the favorites in the Big 12 several months from the start of the 2022 regular season. According to ESPN’s SP+ ratings (ESPN+), the Sooners look like one of the best teams in the country.
SP+ considers returning production, recent recruiting results, and recent history of success. With departures for the NFL and through the transfer portal, the Sooners were No. 71 in returning production in February.
Their recruiting has been excellent in the last five years, regularly finishing with top 15 classes. While they lost quite a few of those recent signees to the transfer portal, Brent Venables and his staff did an excellent job of retooling their roster through the portal to account for the losses on the roster. That’s part of why the Sooners are still so highly thought of.
And despite not winning the Big 12 in 2022, the Sooners still finished the season with 11 wins, the seventh time they accomplished such a feat in the last nine seasons. They had nine wins during the COVID-19 season. Though they were never able to break through to a national championship game, the Sooners have been one of the most successful teams in the country over the last decade.
Heading into 2022, the Sooners’ strength of schedule should allow for them to stack up quite a few wins. According to the FPI, the Sooners’ strength of schedule ranked No. 42 in the country and No. 8 in the Big 12. 247Sports ranked it as the sixth easiest among 2022 contenders.
Some of that can be reflected in their schedule for 2022 relative to ESPN’s SP+ ratings. They have three opponents on their schedule that rank outside the top 100 in SP+; Kansas, UTEP, and Kent State. The highest-ranked team on the schedule is the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Though they won just three games in 2021, they’re a team that many think highly of heading into 2022 (for some reason).
The highest-ranked Big 12 team is the Texas Longhorns. With their offense, Texas should be really good in 2022. If they can improve upon one of the worst defenses in the country from 2021, they’ll be a contender in the Big 12 as long as Quinn Ewers lives up to the hype.
Defending Big 12 champion Baylor comes in at No. 40, the fifth highest-rated team in the Big 12. They lost a lot of talent to the NFL, like the Sooners did, but seem like a team due for a bit of regression after going from two wins to Big 12 champs in one season.
Taking a look out west, the USC Trojans look like a team that will depend heavily on their offense. They rank 24th in offensive SP+ and 84th in defensive SP+. While it will take time for Riley and the Trojans to rebuild a four-win team from 2021, some of the same problems may persist for Oklahoma’s former head coach.
Let’s take a look at how Oklahoma’s 2022 opponents (and USC) rank in ESPN’s SP+ ratings.
The Oklahoma Sooners made the top 4 for 2023 4-star linebacker Phil Picciotti, and receive On3 and Crystal Ball predictions to land his commitment.
A few weeks out from their biggest recruiting event of the year, the Oklahoma Sooners have made some positive headway with several 2023 prospects over the last week. They landed a commitment from versatile 2023 three-star prospect Kaleb Spencer. The Sooners received recruiting projections for tight end Reid Mikeska, a former Clemson commit, and wide receiver Anthony Evans.
One of the many prospects planning to attend Oklahoma’s ChampU BBQ is Phil Picciotti, a linebacker out of Pennsylvania. Picciotti, who was offered and had an unofficial visit under the previous coaching staff has kept the Oklahoma Sooners on his radar despite the change in leadership and included OU in his top four schools.
Oklahoma joins Nebraska, Auburn, and Michigan as the final four schools in consideration for Picciotti’s commitment.
A four-star prospect according to Rivals, National Recruiting Analyst Andrew Friedman had this to say about the linebacker prospect, ranking the Sooners second behind Nebraska in the recruiting battle.
The Sooners have done a good job getting into the thick of the race for Picciotti. When he visited Norman a few weeks back he got a chance to bond with the coaching staff and those relationships have carried Oklahoma thus far. Picciotti is also very impressed by the track record Brent Venables has with linebackers who have a similar skill set. Oklahoma is set to host Picciotti for an official visit June 3rd-5th. – Friedman, Rivals
Since releasing his top four schools, OUInsider’s Parker Thune has issued a crystal ball projection and Ryan Snyder issued an On3 Prediction in favor of the Oklahoma Sooners landing Picciotti.
Hudl
Oklahoma’s trip to Lincoln to take on the Nebraska Cornhuskers among On3’s best nonconference games of 2022.
It had been 11 long years since the Oklahoma Sooners and the Nebraska Cornhuskers took to the field. Last year’s renewal of one of the best rivalries in college football provided an exciting atmosphere and a throwback defensive battle between the two sides.
Fitting that [autotag]Brent Venables[/autotag]’ first Power Five nonconference matchup comes against Nebraska since the last time the two sides played in Nebraska, Venables was still the defensive coordinator at Oklahoma.
They’ll play again in 2022, but this time in Lincoln. In the all-time series, the Sooners carry a 46-38-3 edge, with Oklahoma winning the last two matchups in the contest. Looking ahead to the fall, Mike Huguenin of On3 ranked the best nonconference matchups on the 2022 schedule, and the Sooners vs. the Cornhuskers came in at No. 21 on the list.
Last season’s game, a narrow win by OU, was the first meeting since the 2010 Big 12 championship game. This one will be the first meeting in Lincoln since 2009. This has some intrigue because how good these teams will be is a mystery. Still, there’s no question OU has better talent, and we would not want to be Brent Venables if the Sooners lose his first “big” game. – Huguenin, On3
The game will feature two different quarterbacks than the matchup that pitted [autotag]Spencer Rattler[/autotag] and Adrian Martinez against one another. [autotag]Dillon Gabriel[/autotag] and presumably Casey Thompson will do battle in Lincoln for bragging rights between the two proud programs.
[listicle id=54172]
Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. Let us know your thoughts, comment on this story below. Join the conversation today.
Oklahoma Sooners 2022 football schedule.
The 2022 season for the Oklahoma Sooners marks a new beginning for one of the most storied programs in the history of college football.
Returning to help the Oklahoma Sooners embark on the next chapter is [autotag]Brent Venables[/autotag], who will make his head coaching debut against the UTEP Miners in Norman on Sept. 3. There’s no doubt that the Sooners’ fanbase will be fired up to watch and support their new head coach.
Also returning is former student assistant, now offensive coordinator [autotag]Jeff Lebby[/autotag]. Lebby’s bringing his high-octane offense to the Sooners and brings along a former quarterback with him in [autotag]Dillon Gabriel[/autotag].
Gabriel’s experience helps the Sooners avoid a drop-off at quarterback with both starters from the 2021 season transferring out. Gabriel and the Oklahoma offense get a boost from the return of [autotag]Theo Wease[/autotag] who was out for 2021 due to an injury and initially entered the transfer portal only to return. The receiving yardage leader from the 2020 and 2021 seasons, [autotag]Marvin Mims[/autotag], is back as well to give Oklahoma a nice duo on the outside.
The biggest question facing the Sooners is how they retool a defense that lost six starters from the 2021 season. But with support in the transfer portal from [autotag]Trey Morrison[/autotag], [autotag]Jonah Laulu[/autotag], and [autotag]Jeffery Johnson[/autotag] and some rising stars in Ethan Downs, [autotag]Key Lawrence[/autotag], [autotag]Reggie Grimes[/autotag], [autotag]Marcus Stripling[/autotag], [autotag]Jalen Redmond[/autotag], [autotag]Woodi Washington[/autotag], and [autotag]DaShaun White[/autotag], the Sooners have answers.
Despite all of the turnover, the Oklahoma Sooners are still a contender for the Big 12 and if things go right could find themselves in contention for a College Football Playoff berth.
Some game times and broadcast information are still to be determined. Times are listed in the central time zone.
Week |
Date |
Opponent |
Time |
| 1 | 9/3 | vs. UT-El Paso Miners | TBA |
| 2 | 9/10 | vs. Kent State Golden Flashes | TBA |
| 3 | 9/17 | at Nebraska Cornhuskers | TBA |
| 4 | 9/24 | vs. Kansas State Wildcats | TBA |
| 5 | 10/1 | at TCU Horned Frogs | TBA |
| 6 | 10/8 | vs. Texas Longhorns in Dallas | TBA |
| 7 | 10/15 | vs. Kansas Jayhawks | TBA |
| 8 | 10/22 | at. BYE WEEK | |
| 9 | 10/27 | at Iowa State Cyclones | TBA |
| 10 | 11/5 | vs. Baylor Bears | TBA |
| 11 | 11/12 | at West Virginia Mountaineers | TBA |
| 12 | 11/19 | vs. Oklahoma State Cowboys | TBA |
| 13 | 11/26 | at Texas Tech Red Raiders | TBA |
[listicle id=54172]
Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. Let us know your thoughts, comment on this story below. Join the conversation today.
Taking a look at who 247Sports is dreaming of as nonconference opponents for the Oklahoma Sooners and two more that we’d like to see.
When the Oklahoma Sooners played Ohio State in the 2016 and 2017 seasons, everyone knew the challenge OU faced, but it was an awesome opportunity to prove it was a legit contender in an early season test.
Conference play makes up the bulk of the schedule, and those are the teams we talk most about. However, nonconference play and the great matchups it provides is one of the best things about college football.
Alabama will travel to Austin and face the Texas Longhorns for one of the most highly anticipated games in 2022. If the Sooners are still in the Big 12 in 2023, they’ll face the 2021 national champion Georgia Bulldogs in nonconference play. Those are going to be incredibly fun matchups.
The Sooners current home-and-home series with the [autotag]Nebraska Cornhuskers[/autotag] created a lot of buzz and excitement when the former Big 8 and Big 12 rival returned to Norman for the first time since 2008. And the tightly-contested defensive battle lived up to the hype. As OU gets set for the return trip to Lincoln, that game will grab national attention as well.
As we look to the future, 247Sports’ Nick Kosko shared nonconference matchups that he’s dreaming of and Oklahoma makes the list twice. Also below are two nonconference matchups that we’d love to see.
