Big 12 Football: 5 way-too-early storylines for 2020 season
By John Scimeca
2. Can anyone dethrone Oklahoma?
The Sooners won their fifth Big 12 championship in a row in 2019 by virtue of its overtime victory against Baylor. The Sooners have now won 13 overall Big 12 titles since the conference’s formation in 1996. Do the math: the rest of the conference’s teams have also won 13.
Can anyone stop the incredible Sooner run from becoming six in a row? Or will OU’s football program start to replicate the conference title stretch of the Kansas basketball team?
Look for Baylor (with a new head coach), Texas (with a returning Sam Ehlinger), or Oklahoma State (returning its core of offensive playmakers) to be the most serious challengers to the Sooners next year. Part of the equation will be how the Sooners replace outgoing quarterback Jalen Hurts, a Heisman finalist who followed two Heisman Trophy winners in the two preceding seasons.
The last time OU did not win the Big 12 was 2014, when TCU and Baylor famously finished atop the standings with one loss apiece — and neither receiving a bid to the College Football Playoff. OU’s would-be challengers hope that knocking off the Sooners would not be fruitless this time around.