Oklahoma Sooners among wildcard teams for 2025 College Football Playoff
When you consider the number of injuries the Sooners had to endure in 2024, it's not hard to imagine Oklahoma returning to conference title contention. CBS Sports' Carter Bahns believes the Sooners could be among college football's wild card teams in 2025.
The last time Oklahoma avoided the injury bug, it won 10 games and climbed as high as No. 5 in the CFP rankings. In many ways, the Sooners' SEC debut can be tossed aside as an outlier. Any team stretched that thin at wide receiver and offensive line would be bound to perish in such a loaded conference. Positive regression is in store. The question is, how much. Brent Venables needs it to manifest in the form of at least a few extra wins in order to silence his critics. The defense should remain stout under Venables' guidance, so if John Mateer clicks at quarterback and new offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle is a hit, Oklahoma should bounce back quite nicely. All the way to playoff contention? We'll see. - Bahns, CBS Sports
Brent Venables took an aggressive approach to rebuild an offense that ranked No. 98 in the nation in points per game in 2024. You take away the defensive scores and Oklahoma's offense averaged just 13 points per game in SEC play. Certainly not good enough for a program that's had some of the most prolific offenses over the last 25 years.
So Venables went out and brought in Arbuckle and Mateer, added five transfer portal wide receivers, a trio of portal offensive linemen, three portal tight ends, and a former 1,300-yard running back in Jaydn Ott from Cal to help revitalize the Oklahoma offense from what it was in the Sooners first year in the SEC.
The Sooners are banking on all of the additions, along with some good luck on the injury front, to lead to a resurgent season for the offense. And if that happens, Oklahoma may find themselves in conference title contention in 2025.
Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow John on X @john9williams.
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