CFP bracket promises fun for OU football regardless of foe, but Sooners must win out
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We know OU’s College Football Playoff equation — win and the Sooners are in.
Beat Missouri this week in Norman, then beat LSU the following week at home and OU football is bound for the playoff. We suspected that would be the case after OU’s win at Alabama, but we got confirmation when the latest playoff rankings were released.
The Sooners are No. 8. It’s a spot where, if they lose either of these last two games, they’ll fall out of the rankings, but also a spot where if they win both games, they will either hold the line or rise.
So, we know how the Sooners make the playoff.
But we don’t know who they might play.
That’s where the fun comes in.
Oh, I suspect Brent Venables and Co. aren’t thinking about who might await them in the first round of the playoff. Too much on the line against Missouri and LSU. They’ve got to have that one-game-at-a-time mentality.
But we don’t.
We can look ahead at what might be on the horizon — first-round games will be played Dec. 19 and 20, by the way — and what we spy with our little eyes are some monumental, mammoth matchups.
The first one is the one that came out of the latest rankings.
Notre Dame at OU.
Remember, these first-round playoff games are held on campus, and the teams ranked fifth through eighth will host the games. So, with the Sooners at No. 8 and the Irish at No. 9, they would play in the first round in Norman.
What a matchup.
The two bluebloods have played 11 times since their first matchup in 1952, and Notre Dame has won nine of those games, including the 7-0 victory in 1957 that ended OU’s 47-game winning streak and shocked the college football world.
But OU won the last time the two played, a 35-21 victory in South Bend during the 2013 season.
Between the two programs, they have combined to win 20 national championships. The Irish have 13, the Sooners seven.
Everything about a first-round playoff matchup between these two would be boffo.
And hey, the playoff selection committee might flip the two (the committee has proven itself to be goofy over the years) and send OU to Notre Dame, but that seems unlikely. Notre Dame’s remaining games are against Syracuse and at Stanford. OU’s last two opponents are better, so no first-round matchup at Notre Dame.
But how cool would that be? December football in South Bend? Touchdown Jesus adjacent less than a week before Christmas?
Still, the golden domes and the crimson and creams running around on Owen Field would be spectacular, too.
But what of other OU opponents?
It seems entirely possible that OU might move up ahead of Oregon, which is ranked No. 7. Even though the Sooners have two losses to the Ducks’ one, OU also has three wins against teams ranked in the committee’s top 25 and will get another if it beats Missouri.
Oregon has zero such wins.
As our man Joe Mussatto pointed out, the Ducks being ranked ahead of the Sooners is nonsense.
Of course, OU might move ahead of Oregon with some help from an unlikely hero: Lincoln Riley. The former Sooner coach takes his Southern Cal bunch, currently 8-2 and ranked 15th, to Oregon this week, and if the Trojans win, the Ducks are bound to fall.
What’s more, a USC win sets up the possibility that the Trojans make the playoff, and (do you see where I’m going with this?) USC at OU in the first round isn’t out of the question.
Yes, Lincoln Riley and the Trojans might have to come to Norman.
It’s rich, I tell ya. Rich!
Now, several things would have to happen to make that so. Texas Tech, for one, would need to win the Big 12 Championship Game, keeping BYU out of the playoff and giving USC a chance to sneak in. Or if Alabama, still likely to make the SEC Championship Game, were to lose in Atlanta, the Crimson Tide would likely drop out and provide an opening for the Trojans.
Of course, there’s a slim chance that Alabama might be the team to come to Norman.
If the Sooners beat the Crimson Tide again, Kalen DeBoer’s head might explode.
Then again, here’s an interesting thought: Texas at OU in the first round of the playoff.
Yes, the Red River Rivalry on campus!
OU and Texas haven’t met on one of their campuses since 1923, and the last time they played each other in Norman was 1922. But if Auburn wins at Alabama (seems possible with the wacky history of the Iron Bowl) and Texas beats Texas A&M in Austin (again, anything can happen in a rivalry game like this), the Longhorns might well find their way into the playoff and into a first-round matchup against the Sooners.
Be still, my heart.
Listen, chances are high that OU has a juicy matchup in the first round of the playoffs, and if the Sooners do, it will go down as the biggest home game in program history. The biggest college football game ever played in our state.
Of course, the Sooners have to handle their business this week and next. Watching these must-win games will be grand.
But where they might lead in the playoff could be some serious first-round fun.
Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at @jennicarlsonok.bsky.social and twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
OU vs. Missouri
KICKOFF: 11 a.m. Saturday at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman (ABC)
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU football’s possible CFP first-round game matchup will be rich
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