Oklahoma football has changed head coaches for just the second time this millennium. Lincoln Riley jumped ship to take the top job at USC and the Sooners replaced him with longtime Clemson defensive coordinator and Oklahoma grad Brent Venables. Also in the fold is new offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby, who had spent the past couple years with Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss.

With this change in power comes lots of changes in the roster as well. Some players followed Riley to USC and some transferred elsewhere, while others transferred into the Sooner program. All in all, the Sooners still seem poised to contend for the Big 12 championship once again, and they’ll likely remain in the national title hunt for quite a while as well.

Oklahoma football 2022 predictions

3. Oklahoma goes undefeated on the road

As a quirk of scheduling, Oklahoma always gets Baylor and Oklahoma State, the two other best teams in the conference, paired together in terms of game location. This means that in odd-numbered years, the Sooners play both rivals on the road, and in even-numbered years like 2022, they play both Baylor and Oklahoma State at home.

This leaves road games at Nebraska, Iowa State, TCU, West Virginia and Texas Tech. That’s a much more manageable road slate to say the least. Despite the impressive strides Iowa State has made in recent years, they’ve only beaten the Sooners twice since 2000. Nebraska has only played Oklahoma once since 2009, a 23-16 Sooner win.