Oklahoma’s 2026 season is still sitting out on the horizon, but ESPN’s latest Football Power Index already has the Sooners mapped out in sharp detail.
The headline number is encouraging enough: Oklahoma lands at No. 12 in the updated FPI with a 17.8 rating, and ESPN gives Brent Venables’ team a 28.2% chance to reach the College Football Playoff. That puts the Sooners 12th nationally in playoff odds and sixth in the SEC, a solid position for a team trying to follow up its breakthrough 2025 run.
The national title picture is a little tougher. Oklahoma is listed at 2% to win the championship, which is good for 12th-best in the country.
Ohio State sits atop the board at 17.1%, while Texas leads the SEC pack at 13.2% and ranks second overall. Georgia follows at 9%, then Alabama at 3.7%, LSU at 3.5% and Texas A&M at 3.4%.
That playoff optimism comes with a warning label: Oklahoma’s schedule is brutal. ESPN’s FPI resume metrics rate the Sooners’ regular-season slate as the second-toughest in the nation, and that’s a big reason the numbers are where they are. The model gives Oklahoma a 5.3% shot at winning the SEC and a 4.5% chance of making the College Football Playoff championship game, both of which rank sixth in the conference and 12th nationally.
Three of the teams sitting ahead of Oklahoma in both the playoff and title projections are on the Sooners’ schedule: Texas, Georgia and Texas A&M.
There’s also a baseline expectation baked into the model for how the season should unfold. ESPN projects Oklahoma to finish with 7.5 wins and gives the Sooners a 0.1% chance of going undefeated.
The context matters because Oklahoma already beat the odds once. Last summer, ESPN’s FPI pegged the Sooners for a 7-5 regular season and gave them an 18.4% playoff chance. Instead, Oklahoma went 10-3 overall, finished 10-2 in the regular season, earned a College Football Playoff berth for the first time since 2019 and closed the year 15th in ESPN’s FPI.
That surge came despite an offense that finished 59th in efficiency in Year 1 under Ben Arbuckle. The defense carried a lot of the load, ranking fifth in efficiency, and a strong November run pushed Oklahoma to its second 10-win regular season under Venables.
Now the Sooners are staring at another big year, with the season opener set for Friday, Sept. 4 against UTEP at Owen Field at 7 p.m. CT on SEC Network+. Before that, there’s still the rest of the offseason to get through, including SEC Media Days in Tampa, Florida, and the start of fall camp not long after.
In Other News...
ESPN Just Reinforced Oklahoma's Place Among College Football's True Bluebloods
ESPNs latest jersey-number exercise ended up sounding a lot like an Oklahoma football roll call. In a ranking of the best college players ever to wear each number, the Sooners landed four times at the top, with Baker Mayfield, Caleb Williams, Tommy McDonald and Ricky Dixon each chosen as the standard-bearer for their respective jerseys. It was the kind of list that doubles as a reminder of how often Oklahoma has produced the kind of stars who still define eras.
The deeper cut was almost as telling, because Oklahoma had 12 more former players turn up as first runners-up. Names like Kyler Murray, Adrian Peterson and Lee Roy Selmon only sharpen the point: this is a program with enough history, and enough elite talent, to crowd the conversation at nearly every number. ESPNs breakdown did not just flatter the Sooners, it reinforced the idea that their place in the sports blueblood class still rests on a long line of players who left a mark that is hard to top. [Read more 🡒]
Sooners Suddenly Have Real Buzz In Massive Defensive Line Battle
Kellan Hall is already looking like one of the marquee defensive line names in the 2028 class, and Oklahoma has put itself squarely in the mix early. The Christian Academy of Louisville standout has picked up more than 25 offers and has drawn attention from a national group that includes Notre Dame, Texas A&M, Georgia, Ohio State, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Miami and Kentucky, a sign that his recruitment is going to be anything but quiet.
For the Sooners, the appeal is obvious. Hall has been in Norman multiple times, and those visits have helped keep Oklahoma in a strong position as the race develops. He is expected to trim his list with a top 10 in August before laying out his next round of visit dates, which should give the Sooners a better sense of where they stand in a battle that is only just starting to heat up. [Read more 🡒]
Sooners Fans Have Every Reason To Watch Keldrid Ben Right Now
Keldrid Ben has been one of Oklahomas more important recruiting wins since he committed in December, and now the four-star prospect is back in the spotlight for a different reason. With Florida and Oregon still lingering in the picture, the Sooners have had to keep an eye on a recruitment that has stayed active even after his pledge, which is why his next move is drawing so much attention.
Ben is set to make a new announcement about his recruitment, and the setting points to something more celebratory than dramatic. The expectation is that the moment will play out with his local community in Montgomery, Texas, giving Oklahoma fans another reason to watch closely as one of their top commitments steps back into the public eye. [Read more 🡒]