Tag: Texas Tech Red Raiders football

Big 12 programs ranked by strength of schedule according to Pro Football Focus

Who has the toughest strength of schedule in the Big 12 according to Pro Football Focus’ college football preview?

The 2022 college football season is so close we can almost taste it. The Oklahoma Sooners held their first practice of fall camp on Friday, meaning the home opener against UTEP will be here before we know it.

Brent Venables and the Oklahoma Sooners are looking to open the season strong in a year where expectations remain high after missing out on the Big 12 championship game in 2021.

The Big 12 looks tough this season. While Oklahoma will be among the favorites in the league, defending champion Baylor will be good on defense yet again, and if they can keep their running game going will be tough to beat in 2022. Oklahoma State has the most experienced quarterback in Spencer Sanders and, despite the losses on defense, should be one of the teams in contention.

Quinn Ewers, one of the least experienced quarterbacks in the Big 12, leaves the Longhorns as a wild card. They should be good again offensively, but that wasn’t necessarily the problem last year. It was the defense.

Throw in teams like Kansas State and West Virginia, who could be dark horse contenders, and there’s a solid six teams that could be in contention into November.

A lot of how the 2022 season transpires could simply come down to scheduling. The Oklahoma Sooners will play Baylor, Oklahoma State, and Kansas State at home. They have the neutral site game against Texas and have road games against Nebraska, West Virginia, and Iowa State that could prove difficult.

As we get set for the 2022 season, Pro Football Focus released their season preview (premium), and this is how they ranked the Big 12 according to strength of schedule.

Where do the Oklahoma Sooners and their opponents rank in Athlon Sports 1-131 2022 projections?

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.

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.

Updated look at where the Sooners stand among Big 12 teams in 247Sports team recruiting rankings

The Oklahoma Sooners have had a fantastic month and a half since the calendar turned to June and have climbed just outside of the top 10.

The Oklahoma Sooners have added 11 commitments in the last month and a half to make a significant jump in the 247Sports composite team recruiting rankings.

They’ve made the biggest move up the rankings since June 30, landing commitments from four-star players like Cayden Green, Jaquaize Pettaway, Samuel Omosigho, Adepoju Adebawore, and Daylan Smothers. Add them to a recruiting class that includes five-star quarterback Jackson Arnold and four-star running back Kalib Hicks, and this group has a chance to improve even further beyond their No. 11 class in the country.

While the Texas Longhorns lead the way in the Big 12, the Sooners have closed the gap with their incredible couple of weeks in the month of July.

Let’s take a look at how the Big 12 stacks up in the latest team recruiting rankings from 247Sports.

How does College Football News see Oklahoma’s 2022 season playing out?

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.

Preseason look at the game-by-game win projections for the Oklahoma Sooners per ESPN’s FPI

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.

Brent Venables at No. 8 in CBS Sports Big 12 head coach rankings

Brent Venables comes in at No. 8, but how does CBS Sports rank the remaining Big 12 coaches heading into the 2022 season?

This past winter saw the Big 12 turn over more than 25% of its coaching ranks as Brent Venables, Sonny Dykes, and Joey McGuire took over at Oklahoma, TCU, and Texas Tech.

Dykes is the only one of the three that enters 2022 with any head coaching experience after stops at Louisiana Tech, Cal and SMU. While Venables doesn’t have any head coaching experience, he’s spent the better part of the last 30 years learning from hall of fame coaches Bill Snyder, Bob Stoops and Dabo Swinney. As arguably the best defensive coordinator of the last decade, Venables gets to try his hand at building and running his first football program.

There’s a great deal of optimism surrounding Oklahoma under Venables, and there’s little doubt that the Sooners will have success. However, the turnover the Sooners endured this offseason leaves many wondering if Oklahoma can reassert itself as the king of the Big 12 in 2022.

In a deep league full of quality coaches, Venables checks in at No. 8 in CBS Sports Big 12 coach rankings for 2022. And that’s simply because he hasn’t done it before.

Here’s a look at how the coaches stack up in the Big 12 conference.

How does Oklahoma stack up against the Big 12 in 247Sports team recruiting rankings as of June 1?

As the calendar flipped to June, how does Oklahoma stack up against the Big 12 in 247Sports updated team recruiting rankings for 2023?

This summer is bound to be an active one for the Oklahoma Sooners on the recruiting trail. With the ChampU BBQ coming to Norman this weekend, the Sooners look to make significant strides with their targets from the 2023 recruiting cycle.

Oklahoma’s class took a temporary hit with the flip of [autotag]Ashton Cozart[/autotag] to the Oregon Ducks, but with the additions of [autotag]Javian Hester[/autotag] and [autotag]L.V. Bunkley-Shelton[/autotag], they’ve got some wiggle room at wide receiver for the next couple of seasons. On the bright side, the flip allowed the Sooners to focus their attention on in-state prospect and four-star wide receiver Cole Adams.

With just four commitments in their 2023 recruiting cycle, the Sooners currently sit No. 39 overall and No. eight in the Big 12. [autotag]Jackson Arnold[/autotag], [autotag]Joshua Bates[/autotag], [autotag]Erik McCarty[/autotag], and [autotag]Kaleb Spencer[/autotag] may not have five stars next to their name, but they were priority targets for the Oklahoma Sooners coaching staff. There’s a chance that each of these guys adds another star to their recruiting profile with strong senior seasons.

The Texas Tech Red Raiders currently lead the Big 12 in team recruiting rankings and are the No. 2 team in the country. While they’ve had a nice start to the 2023 cycle under new head coach Joey McGuire, they’ve also got 20 commitments in the class, so of course, they’re leading the Big 12. Baylor, the No. 2 team in the conference has just 10 players committed to the 2023 class.

Recruiting is a marathon and not a sprint. While teams may have jumped out to early leads for tops in the conference, the Oklahoma Sooners have a big summer ahead of themselves. But as of June 1, let’s take a look at where the Big 12 stands in 247Sports composite team recruiting rankings.

Where do Oklahoma and their 2022 opponents rank in updated ESPN SP+ ratings?

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.

College Football News win total projections for Oklahoma and the Big 12

Win Projections for the Oklahoma Sooners and the Big 12 according to College Football News.

The Oklahoma Sooners head into the summer as favorites to win the Big 12. It’s a familiar place for Oklahoma, which had won six straight conference titles before failing to reach the Big 12 championship game last year for the first time since it was reinstated in 2017.

But being the favorite doesn’t guarantee anything as we witnessed last season. The Big 12 has gotten better. Nine teams can provide trouble for each other, and, as we saw last year, even Kansas is on the rise.

Remember that time Kansas beat Texas? That was awesome.

In Brent Venables’ first year as a head coach, the expectations for the Oklahoma Sooners remain unchanged. Winning the conference is the first goal. The hope is the Sooners do that in such a way that it positions them for a college football playoff berth.

Though Oklahoma will have to prove it each week on the field, it looks like the team to beat heading into 2022. Much like recent power rankings from national outlets have indicated, College Football News gives the Sooners the highest win projection in the Big 12 for the 2022 season.

Let’s take a look at how the Big 12 shakes out according to College Football News’ win projections.

Where Oklahoma and the rest of the Big 12 fall in USA TODAY Sports’ latest 1-131 re-rank

Disappointing end to 2021, coaching change. That hasn’t slowed down the Oklahoma Sooners who are No. 5 in USA TODAY Sports 1-131 2022 re-rank.

The start of the 2022 college football season is still four months away, but there’s already a ton of optimism about where the Oklahoma Sooners stand. In most circles, the Sooners are seen as the favorites to win the Big 12 and are considered one of the top teams in the country in the preseason.

Erick Smith of USA TODAY Sports had the Sooners at No. 4 in his post-spring power rankings. So did Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports.

In Paul Myerburg’s latest 1-131 re-rank, which he also does during the college football season, the Sooners came in at No. 5 behind the Alabama Crimson Tide, Ohio State Buckeyes, Georgia Bulldogs, and Michigan Wolverines.

In the Big 12, the Sooners are one of four teams inside the top 25 and only five teams break the top 50. Kansas, who’s regularly been a bottom dweller in the NCAA re-rank is getting some positive attention. They’re still outside the top 100, but have it within reach at No. 104.

Let’s take a look at how the Big 12 stacks up in the latest 1-131 re-rank.