The Oklahoma Sooners carry a top 10 ranking into yet another college football season. Here are five reasons why they will not live up to that ranking.
The Oklahoma Sooners face more uncertainty entering the 2017 campaign than in any season in recent memory. Legendary head coach Bob Stoops is out and will be replaced by former offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley. While Riley will likely become successful with the Sooners, he’ll take some time to get adjusted to the pressure and the spotlight that comes with coaching a team with this much expectation year in and year out.
Having a quarterback like Baker Mayfield eases the transition for any new head coach. The next man up, Kyler Murray, might be almost as good as Mayfield also. Oklahoma likely gets some combination of Mayfield and Murray for the next three years.
However, the rest of the depth chart does not look as promising for the Sooners. The offensive line should be solid, led by junior left tackle Orlando Brown. The receiving corps is not as encouraging. Much of the hopes for Mayfield with his receivers lies with tight end Mark Andrews. If Andrews does not come through then Mayfield is left out to dry.
The Big 12, as a whole, has quite a bit of competition at the top. Aside from the Sooners, the Kansas State Wildcats, Oklahoma State Cowboys, and West Virginia Mountaineers all pose real threats to dethrone OU. The Texas Longhorns also have quite the hype train built up behind first-year head coach Tom Herman and sophomore quarterback Shane Buechele. The teams that seem most likely to take down the Sooners are Oklahoma State and Kansas State, the two highest-ranked teams in the Coaches Poll in the Big 12 behind OU.
Oklahoma is the obvious choice for Big 12 favorite since they have won back-to-back conference championships with Mayfield at the helm. Now, let’s take a look at the opposite point of view and five reasons why the Sooners will stink in 2017.
5. No more Bob Stoops
To say that the loss of Bob Stoops will not affect Oklahoma is just downright wrong. Very few candidates seem like a better fit for the head coach position than Lincoln Riley but no one can replace Stoops. He was one of the longest tenured coaches in college football until he unexpectedly retired around one month ago.
That’s hard for a lot of returning and new players to get a grasp on when your coach just up and leaves like that. The entire culture of the program can change in a split second and that’s not what a lot of recruits originally bought into.
The effects of Stoops’ absence might be felt on both sides of the ball, especially on defense. Players like defensive lineman Matthew Romar and cornerback Jordan Thomas need to step up as leaders even more than needed when Stoops was still there.
Even with some up and down seasons at the end of Stoops’ career, he finished up with a Sugar Bowl victory in 2016 and a College Football Playoff appearance in 2015. Either way, that’s a lot for Riley to live up to.
4. Emergence of Kansas State and Oklahoma State
One of the reasons that defending conference champions are often knocked off is other emerging contenders that are just too strong to hold off. Oklahoma State and Kansas State are no joke in 2017. Both teams are ranked inside the top 20 in the first edition of the Amway Coaches Poll and both teams are hungry to bring home a Big 12 Title.
Kansas State has a quarterback in Jesse Ertz that can beat you in multiple facets. Ertz rushed for more than 1,000 yards and 12 touchdowns in 2016. He also compiled more than 20 total touchdowns. Preparing for that is not something that will be easy for any coach to do, let alone a first-year head coach.
Oklahoma State has the best receiving corps in the country, capable of dismantling any secondary they face. James Washington, Jalen McCleskey, Marcell Ateman, Tyron Johnson, etc., all pose threats to break a defense open at any time. And they have a Heisman contender in senior quarterback Mason Rudolph throwing to them.
Don’t discount the Texas Longhorns, West Virginia Mountaineers, TCU Horned Frogs and Baylor Bears either. All those teams have the ability to pull off a gigantic upset at any point this season.
3. Jordan Thomas alone in the secondary
Senior defensive back Jordan Thomas notched five interceptions back in 2015. He has the ability to do that once again in 2017. Yet, he might be the only defensive back that opposing offenses have to worry about avoiding on the Oklahoma defense.
More from Oklahoma Sooners
- Ranking the top 15 college football starting quarterbacks for 2023
- One of these 4 teams will win the Big 12 football title in 2023
- Is Oklahoma football the team to beat for 5-star DL David Stone?
- Top 5 commitments from past week in college football recruiting (July 17-23)
- Major commitments for Nebraska, OU, and Tennessee in college football recruiting
Fellow defensive backs such as Steven Parker and Will Sunderland are solid but need to take their play to another level to be successful against multiple high-powered Big 12 offenses.
The OU secondary struggled to stop opposing offenses, especially with great passing attacks, for most of the season. For example, the game against Texas Tech where OU nearly gave up 60 points and almost lost a game that they should have had in the bag.
There’s almost no defensive backs in the country that are good enough to lead a secondary by themselves. While Thomas could be a first round pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, that does not mean he can handle passing attacks all by himself.
2. Lack of supporting cast for Baker Mayfield
Dede Westbrook was the go to target for Mayfield last season. Losing the more than 1,600 receiving yards and 17 touchdowns that Westbrook produced last season needs to be made up by three players. Those three players are senior receivers Jeff Badet and Jeffery Meade and tight end Mark Andrews.
There’s a good chance that Andrews is one of the breakout tight ends of the 2017 season. He could haul in more than 800 yards and 10 touchdowns by the end of the 2017 campaign. However, Meade and Badet seem to be players that could disappoint more than they pan out in 2017.
The running back picture is drastically different for the Sooners as well. Gone is the superstar combination of Joe Mixon and Samaje Perine. Sophomore running backs Abdul Adams and Rodney Anderson will carry the bulk of the load in the backfield. We’ll see how they fair behind a solid offensive line but with defenses used to facing Mixon and Perine.
The main criticisms of Mayfield are putting too much pressure on himself and making poor decisions consistently when flushed out of the pocket. Hopefully that does not build on him as the season goes along.
1. Too much reliance on Baker Mayfield
Continuing with the trend of Baker Mayfield on this list, how much pressure is on him and the Oklahoma offense this season? The answer to that is very obvious. Not only do Big 12 quarterbacks more pressure on them as is because of the style of offense run in the conference, but also the added pressure from having Lincoln Riley as head coach now.
The Sooners have put together one of the most impressive runs of any offense over the last two seasons. That is largely thanks to Mayfield and the backbone he provides for the offense. He threw for more than 3,900 yards and 40 touchdowns with less than 10 interceptions.
Next: College Football: Top 50 breakout candidates for 2017
If anything happens to Mayfield that costs him confidence or he gets injured could mean a bleak outlook for Oklahoma. They do not really have a good backup plan if Mayfield does not continue to be the superstar and face of the program that he has been over the last two seasons.