Advertisement
football Edit

Sooners No.8 in initial CFP rankings

Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley was pretty dismissive about the importance of the initial College Football Playoff rankings even before they were released Tuesday night, but it does show the Sooners have a little bit of a hill to climb.

Despite being 9-0 for the first time since 2004 and since the CFP has been formed, OU came in at No. 8 when the first top 25 was unveiled.

“To me, it’s just meaningless stuff to kill the time until we get to the end,” said Riley on Tuesday afternoon. “I think a great example is go back and look where we were ranked in the first CFP poll all the years that we got into the CFP. The biggest games, the best games, the most important games all across the country are still yet to be played. There are a lot of good teams that are vying for it.

“The best ones tend to rise up this time of year and separate themselves. That will happen this year. Where we sit right now – and I say we meaning college football as a whole and all the rankings – where they sit right now and where they will be in three or four weeks is going to be a big, big difference.”

OU’s inability to be dominant has been noticed, said CFP committee chair Gary Barta. Between the defensive struggles of October and the lack of a real noteworthy win, it’s not the greatest resume for a spot at the table.

Barta did say the team has looked completely different since true freshman Caleb Williams took over at quarterback.

“First of all, they're 9-0, and so they belong being ranked eighth,” Barta said. “They're undefeated, so they get a lot of credit for that. But you mentioned it, defensive struggles throughout the year certainly was discussed.

“The other thing that was discussed is Oklahoma is still trying to find their identity, but certainly when they added Caleb Williams at quarterback, the committee agreed that the offense certainly changed in a positive way, but it may – we may be seeing it impacting the whole team, defense included.

“But that switch in quarterback, I think everybody agreed, is potentially – it'll be fun to watch from here forward. Yea, those close calls are seen by the committee just like everybody else.”

The Sooners have never been in the top four for the first week of rankings, but OU has always had at least one loss at the time as well.

OU has shown that being No. 8 in the initial rankings doesn’t mean much as the Sooners were No. 15 way back when in 2015 before making the final four. OU was No. 5, No. 7 and No. 9 in the other three years it reached the playoff after the first week of CFP rankings.

The fact so many one-loss teams are ahead of Riley’s bunch might seem alarming, but everybody knows what is waiting for OU in what is dubbed “Championship November.”

OU is at No. 12 Baylor, plays (a current) 5-3 Iowa State team and in Stillwater vs. No. 11 Oklahoma State. Survive all that, a rematch with one of those three seems like a guarantee for AT&T Stadium in Arlington for the Big 12 championship.

Georgia was the easy No. 1 in the list, followed by Alabama, Michigan State and Oregon to round out the first four. Ohio State, Cincinnati, Michigan and OU comprise the rest of the top eight.


Advertisement