Who does CBS Sports think OU will face this bowl season?

NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...

Heading into the 2026 season, the Oklahoma Sooners wanted to improve upon their 2025 season. That meant returning to the College Football Playoff and winning at least one game there this year. However, a rough start to the season means that the CFP could be out of reach for OU after just four games.

If the team doesn't improve significantly, they'll have to fight and claw just to make it to a bowl game. The last time Oklahoma missed a bowl game was in 1998. However, many national pundits still believe that OU will be able to play in bowl season for the 28th straight year. That includes the team over at CBS Sports, who included the Sooners in their latest bowl projections.

In the SEC, the teams that qualify for the CFP are off the board for the remaining bowl selections. The Citrus Bowl gets to pick the top SEC team that does not qualify for the playoff.

After that, there's a pool of six bowls, with no pecking order, that will consult with the SEC and school personnel to determine where teams are scheduled. They'll try to create the best possible matchups. For 2026, those bowls (in no particular order) are the Gator Bowl, the Las Vegas Bowl, the Liberty Bowl, the Music City Bowl, the ReliaQuest Bowl, and the Texas Bowl.

After that, two more bowls, the Birmingham Bowl and the Gasparilla Bowl, will get to pick from any bowl-eligible SEC teams that do not yet have a landing spot.

CBS Sports has Oklahoma landing in the Las Vegas Bowl this season, and that game will be played on New Year's Eve. The SEC and the Big Ten alternate which league sends a team to the Las Vegas Bowl each season, with the SEC getting even years and the Big Ten getting odd years. The other game that follows that pattern is the Duke's Mayo Bowl.

OU's projected opponent in that game is the USC Trojans, and they're fulfilling the legacy Pac-12 bid for the bowl, despite now playing in the Big Ten. The 10 former Pac-12 teams are still eligible for Pac-12-affiliated bowl games, as are the teams that are currently in the Pac-12.

Of course, that matchup would immediately be one of the most-discussed games of the entire bowl season, as it would see Lincoln Riley face off against his former team for the very first time. Riley left OU in the middle of the night at the end of the 2021 regular season, and Oklahoma hired Brent Venables to replace him.

Neither program has had the desired overall success in the time since, though the Sooners do at least have a playoff appearance to show for it. Riley's seat is currently hotter than Venables' is but neither coach has met expectations during the full course of their tenure. Both fanbases are growing less and less fond of their head coaches as the 2026 season progresses.

Clearly, making it to the Las Vegas Bowl isn't what Oklahoma wanted this season. However, a chance to face Riley would certainly be more intriguing than most of the other bowl matchups the Sooners could get in the postseason. There's a long way to go before we learn exactly what OU will ultimately be this year, but improvement is an absolute must for Venables' team.

Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes and opinions. You can also follow Aaron on X@Aaron_Gelvin.

This article originally appeared on Sooners Wire: Who does CBS Sports think OU will face this bowl season?

More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos