Ari Wasserman’s latest College Football Playoff forecast gives Oklahoma fans a little hope - and then immediately rips it away.
In his 2026 CFP prediction for On3, Wasserman has the Sooners back in the 12-team field for a second straight year and finally breaking through for their first playoff win after five previous losses. He slots Oklahoma in as the No. 11 seed and sends the Sooners to Lubbock, where they would knock off No. 6 Texas Tech in the opening round.
For Sooner Nation, that part would be easy to embrace. Beating the Red Raiders on the way to a long-awaited playoff victory would be a satisfying way to start the bracket, especially with Texas Tech having become a major target across college football this offseason.
Then comes the part Oklahoma fans would rather not think about.
Wasserman’s bracket sends the Sooners into a second Red River Rivalry meeting with No. 3 Texas, this time at a neutral site outside the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.
The source notes that a setup like that would be the first Red River Rivalry outside Texas borders since 1922, unless it were played in the Cotton Bowl at AT&T Stadium. It would also echo 2018, when Oklahoma lost to Texas in the regular season before beating the Longhorns in the Big 12 Championship Game at AT&T Stadium.
This version, though, ends differently. Wasserman has Texas knocking Oklahoma out of the playoff and then going on to win the national title, beating Oregon in the CFP National Championship Game.
That would be a brutal finish for the Sooners, and the source doesn’t mince words about it. It would be worse than a blowout loss to USC and worse than Baker Mayfield’s career ending with a shootout against Georgia in the Rose Bowl. It would also leave Oklahoma fans carrying that pain through the offseason and beyond, especially if Texas entered the next Red River meeting as defending national champion.
The sting would be made even sharper by the fact that Texas fans are already leaning hard on Oklahoma’s recent struggles in the rivalry, including the Sooners failing to reach the end zone in either of the last two losses. A season-ending defeat to the Longhorns would only add another layer to that frustration.
Still, it’s only a prediction, and plenty would have to break the right way for it to happen. The other side of the coin is just as obvious: one Oklahoma win over Texas would flip the whole mood, sending the offseason into Austin instead and giving Sooner Nation the chance to do the bragging for once.
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