Coming out of the 2024 season, the Oklahoma Sooners faced several questions as a program. It was a football team that faced incredible adversity due to injuries, which derailed the season and the development of their former five-star quarterback. It could have been very easy for the coaching staff and administration to simply chalk up the issues to injuries and hope things improved in 2025, but they didn’t. They were aggressive in the portal and in their offensive coordinator coaching search to help rebound an offense that left the defense hanging in a number of games. Brent Venables believes this is a team that has a chance to win every game on their schedule.
But there’s a lot of optimism surrounding the Oklahoma Sooners, not just locally, but at the national level as well. Bill Connelly over at ESPN believes that if a few things fall the Oklahoma Sooners’ way, they could be a team that contends in a wide-open SEC. Here’s what he had to say in his SEC season preview.
Even against a schedule featuring nine projected top-25 teams (!), the defense will give the Sooners a chance in most games. The offense’s improvement will determine whether they can actually win a few… The ridiculous schedule will put a ceiling on the win total, but the bar for improvement isn’t particularly high. – Connelly, ESPN
Connelly considers Alabama the favorites followed by Georgia, Texas, LSU, Ole Miss, and Tennessee. Oklahoma is in the second tier of contenders that are “a couple of breaks away from a run.” That group includes Texas A&M, South Carolina, Auburn, Missouri, and Oklahoma.
By every metric, the Oklahoma Sooners face one of the toughest schedules in the nation in 2025. But a lot of that is based on recent success and recruiting over the last few years. It’s not fully taking into account the turnover that a number of teams are facing at the quarterback position. Teams like Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Ole Miss, and Michigan are rolling out first-year starters at the quarterback position. Auburn and Tennessee will have quarterbacks who have started games, but it will be their first year in their systems.
The only quarterbacks that have extensive starting experience in their current systems that the Sooners will face are South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers and LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier.
Given Brent Venables’ success as a defensive coordinator over the years, it’s not a bold claim to think Oklahoma’s defense can contain the offenses they’ll face in 2025.
And although many question Oklahoma’s offense after it was the worst it has been since 1998, the Sooners made a concerted effort to upgrade the offense with the hiring of offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle, adding quarterback John Mateer and running back Jaydn Ott, and retooling the depth chart with veteran portal additions.
The Oklahoma offense will be better this year. It’s more experienced than it was going into 2024 and, ahead of training camp, is trending toward being healthy for the start of the season.
The Sooners have a chance at a rebound season in 2025 with a defense that’s ready to contend and an offense that will be significantly improved from 2024. If they get a few breaks along the way, which every team needs, the Sooners could find their way to Atlanta at the end of the season.
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This article originally appeared on Sooners Wire: Oklahoma Sooners on verge of SEC title contention