In order to return to the College Football Playoff, No. 8/9 Oklahoma must win the next four games, the Big 12 Championship and get help.
The run begins at 7 p.m. Saturday as the Sooners host Iowa State after a week off.
OU must win and four teams ranked ahead of them must lose. Those teams are Alabama, LSU, Clemson, Ohio State, Penn State, Georgia, Oregon and maybe Utah.
No. 1/2 Alabama and No. 1/2 LSU play at 2 p.m. Saturday. One will lose but if it is a close game, both could still be ranked above OU.
No. 4/3 Clemson has the easiest path to the playoff with games against North Carolina State, Wake Forest and South Carolina (plus the ACC championship – probably against 6-3 Virginia).
No. 3/4 Ohio State – perhaps with the toughest path to the playoff – plays Maryland, Rutgers, No. 5 Penn State and No. 14 Michigan plus the Big 10 Championship – probably against 8-0 Minnesota.
No. 5 Penn State or Ohio State will suffer one loss. The Nittany Lions have No. 13 Minnesota, Indiana and Rutgers plus the Big Ten title game – maybe a rematch with Ohio State.
No. 6 Georgia, with one loss already, has Missouri, No. 12 Auburn, Texas A&M and Georgia Tech left. The Bulldogs would probably face Alabama or LSU in the SEC Championship.
No. 7 Oregon, also with one loss, should coast to the PAC-12 Championship with games against Arizona, Arizona State and Oregon State. That would set up a PAC-12 title game probably against No. 8/9 Utah. Utah has a similarly easy schedule with games against UCLA, Arizona and Colorado.
In summary, Alabama plays LSU, Ohio State plays Penn State, Georgia will play Alabama/LSU and Oregon will probably play Utah.
The good news for OU’s case for the playoff is that if the Sooners and the Baylor Bears both win Saturday, that could set up a Top 10 match on November 16. A decisive victory might move OU (or Baylor) to the top of the list of one-loss teams. It’s a similar scenario to what OU has used in almost every trip to the playoff.
In 2018, OU beat Iowa State 37-27 in Ames, Iowa. The No. 5-ranked Sooners were paced by former quarterback Kyler Murray, who threw for 348 yards and three touchdowns and former wideout marquise Brown, who had 191 receiving yards and one score.
This year, the Cyclones are 5-3 overall, 3-2 in the Big 12. Iowa State lost to in-state rival No. 19 Iowa in nonconference play and was edged by Baylor (21-23) and Oklahoma State (27-34) in league play. ISU was idle last week.
USA Today reported this weekend that Iowa State coach Matt Campbell is one of the top candidates to replace Coach Willie Taggart, who was fired at Florida State. Campbell’s record at ISU is 59-37 (including one upset over OU). He resurrected a Cyclone program that was 5-19 the two years before he arrived.
Campbell was glad to have a bye week last week.
“I think that’s the positive for us is we know at this portion of the season what wins and what loses,” Campbell said. “For us it’s the ability for us to just pound away at the fundamentals and details of making sure as we get into some of these big games down the stretch run that we’ve got the ability to really hang on the fundamentals and details of what allows us to win football games.”
OU used the off week to recover from the season’s grind and shake the loss to Kansas State.
OU needs a perfect November.
“I think a constant hunger to improve and the desire to win a championship,” said OU coach Lincoln Riley. “We’ve put ourselves in that position again going into November. We’re right there where we want to be and we’ve got some great opportunities coming up against some really good football teams, starting with Iowa State here.
“That’s what November ball’s about. Do you get tired of doing it? Do you get tired of the workouts and all the things you do all year? Tired of the grind? Or are you excited to play your very best ball? And that’s where we have to be.”
Oklahoma quarterback Jalen Hurts and wide receiver CeeDee Lamb were named semifinalists for the 83rd Maxwell Award for the Collegiate Player of the Year and Neville Gallimore and Kenneth Murray were selected as semifinalists for the 25th Chuck Bednarik Award for the Outstanding Defensive Player of the Year, the Maxwell Football Club announced.
Oklahoma and Ohio State are the only schools with two semifinalists for both the Maxwell and Bednarik awards.
Hurts and Lamb have combined to lead the most prolific offense in the country this season while Gallimore and Murray have paced the defensive turnaround for Oklahoma. The Sooners lead the nation in scoring offense, total offense and passing efficiency, as well as yards per pass attempt (12.82) and yards per rush (7.1). OU ranks 30th nationally in total defense, as opposed to 59th at this time last year, 42nd in scoring defense (62nd last year), 42nd in rushing defense (56th last year), 38th in passing defense (75th last year) and 26th in sacks (53rd last year).