2012 Pre-season Rankings: #3 Oklahoma Sooners

SportsRatings 2012 College Football Pre-season Top 124

Oklahoma Sooners  (Big Twelve #1)

#3	2011 Results	Record: 10-3	Strength:#7  Success:#6  Overall:#5
		AP #16  USA #15	Bowl: Beat Iowa 31-14 (Insight)
	2012 Outlook	Record: 10-2/11-1	Picks: Lindy's #4; Athlon #5; Steele #5
		AP #4  USA #4	Bowl: Fiesta (Eligibility odds: 99.9%)

Bobby Stoops and Oklahoma are back at it again, making another run at the national title, and hoping to avoid being tripped up again by any mediocre opponents.

Offense 7 RS	'11 Scoring Offense: #10 (raw) #7 (adjusted for competition)
	'12 Projected Scoring Offense: #3 (adjusted)

Landry Jones should overcome his 'junior slump' with a strong senior season.

Passing Game	'11 Passing Rank: #5 (raw) #6 (adjusted)	'11 Sacks Allowed (adj.): #3
	'12 Projected Passing Rank: #5 (adjusted)	'12 Sacks Allowed (proj.): #5

Landry Jones is already Oklahoma's all-time passing yardage leader; he has started since his freshman year when Sam Bradford got hurt. Jones' junior year was a bit of a step back, as his yardage dropped to 4,463 (down ~250) and his completion rate fell to 63% from 66%. He had 29 touchdown passes (down 9) and 15 interceptions (up 3). Much of this occurred after Ryan Broyles (1,157 yards, 10 TDs) was lost for the last 1/3 of his senior season. Kenny Stills (849 yards) and Jaz Reynolds (715 yards; suspended 1st 3 games or so) are back and the offense got some valuable experience running without Broyles. They also got Penn State transfer Justin Brown (517 yards) and Jalen Saunders (1,065 yards at Fresno State) might be eligible this year, too. Protection was great last year (11 sacks) and will be almost that good again despite recent personnel losses. Jones should have a better year more like his sophomore season.

Rushing

'11 Rushing Rank: #51 (raw) #45 (adjusted)

'11 Projected Rushing Rank: #38 (adj.)

Dominique Whaley and Roy Finch combined for 1,232 yards roughly equally, and Whaley had 9 touchdowns. Brennan Clay added 274. All three are back, though Whaley might not be 100% early on after breaking his ankle last season. The offensive line headed into spring with just 1 starter gone from last season, but Tyler Evans was lost due to an ACL tear. They had Ben Habern (full time starter in 2010, half-time starter last year) back as well but his medical issues were too great. Gabe Ikard and Lane Johnson are back with part-time starter Adam Shead. With the recent loss of two O-line seniors and Whaley slowed early on we predict only a modest increase.

'11 Adjusted Stats:	Rush Defense: #22    Pass Defense  per-game: #43   Per-attempt: #17
Defense 7 RS	'11 Scoring Defense: #33 (raw) #6 (adjusted)	'11 sacks: #6	'11 picks: #33
	'12 Projected Scoring Defense: #8 (adjusted)	'12 sacks: #8	'12 picks: #14

Mike Stoops is back to coach the defense after eight mostly futile years as Arizona's head coach. The big improvement on defense could be more interceptions, as three starters return to the secondary:  #1 tackler Aaron Colvin, Tony Jefferson (4 int), and Demontre Hurst (11 pass breakups). They do lose Jamell Fleming (10 pass breakups) but should be better nonetheless. At linebacker Tom Wort is back with Corey Nelson (5.5 sacks) while Travis Lewis departs. The defensive line takes a sizeable hit as Frank Alexander (8.5 sacks plus 10.5 tackles for loss) and Ronnell Lewis (5.5 sacks) are gone. Two starters are back, however, along with new starter R.J. Washington (5 of his 16 tackles were sacks). The defense might be better against the pass and a bit weaker against the run but almost as strong in total.

Special Teams/Situations

• Kicking Game:  Mike Hunnicutt made 21 of 24 field goals last year while Tress Way averaged 42.0 yards per punt. Both are back.
• Return Game:  Kenny Stills may take over for Ryan Broyles (10.3 average) on punt returns, while Trey Franks again handles kickoffs (23.9 average). While Franks is suspended early on Dominique Whaley may have the job, but they might not risk having him there so soon after recovery from last season's injuries.
• Turnovers projection:  We assume that Landry will knock his interception rate back to where it was in 2010, and the defense should have a few more than last year, too.

Coaching/Recruiting      2012 Recruiting Rank: #10          2011 Recruiting Rank: #30
Oklahoma's recruiting is back up where it normally is after an off year. One explanation for both rankings is the fact that top recruit WR Troy Metoyer didn't qualify last year, but did this year coming from prep school; that docked him from the 2011 class and added him to the 2012 class.

2011 Recap
Though they started the year #1 in the pre-season 2011 AP poll, Oklahoma's early-season games were a bit disappointing at the time. They crushed Tulsa but the Golden Hurricane lost just as badly to other top-tier teams. They beat high-ranked FSU in a sloppy game but the Seminoles lost their next two games, diminishing that win. Missouri had several losses by mid-season and gave the Sooners a good test. But in retrospect, Oklahoma beat five bowl-eligible teams in a row—even Ball State finished 6-6—and by the time they beat Texas 55-17, no one was doubting how good they were. They struggled with Kansas in the first half, but that was dismissed as a fluke. But they lost to Texas Tech 41-38, a loss compounded by the Red Raiders' subsequent terrible performance and 5-7 finish. In their last five games Oklahoma blew apart Kansas State and beat two more bowl teams but fell to Baylor and were obliterated by Oklahoma State 44-10. In the end they can claim wins over a stunning 8 bowl teams out of 9 wins, but show a clear vulnerability to good passing teams. And on offense, a decline in performance over the last 5 regular-season games coincided with the loss of Ryan Broyles. Oklahoma ended up in the Insight Bowl against 7-5 Iowa and won a dull game 31-14.

2012 Outlook

Oklahoma 2012 schedule & forecast
9/1	Sat	@	UTEP	97%	W
9/8	Sat	vs.	Florida A&M	100%	W
9/22	Sat	vs.	*Kansas State	87%	W
10/6	Sat	@	*Texas Tech	87%	W
10/13	Sat	N	*Texas	67%	W
10/20	Sat	vs.	*Kansas	99%	W
10/27	Sat	vs.	Notre Dame	84%	W
11/3	Sat	@	*Iowa State	90%	W
11/10	Sat	vs.	*Baylor	94%	W
11/17	Sat	@	*West Virginia	78%	W
11/24	Sat	vs.	*Oklahoma State	80%	W
12/1	Sat	@	*TCU	83%	W
Straight up: 12-0  Cume: 10-2/11-1  Undefeated: 18%

 

Another year, another set of high expectations for the Oklahoma Sooners. And like seemingly every year, will there be upset losses in the mid-profile games, too? Since their last national title in 2000, Oklahoma has had great teams that have inexplicably lost to mediocre squads. They lost to 4-7 Oklahoma State in 2001, 6-6 Texas A&M in 2002, 7-6 Oregon in 2006, 6-7 Colorado in 2007, and 5-7 Texas Tech last year. So when we make Oklahoma the favorite in every game this year, mostly by wide margins, keep that in the back of your mind.

Oklahoma has two bye weeks in the first five weeks of college football, before and after the Kansas State game. The Texas game is probably their biggest challenge of the year, since they play Oklahoma State and Notre Dame at home and the team will be bent on dishing out revenge to the Cowboys in any case. West Virginia on the road might be the 2nd hardest, and they finish at TCU. The good news might be that it's hard to find a mediocre team in the Big Twelve this year; maybe watch out when they play Iowa State and Baylor back-to-back.

The numbers give them a 18% chance of finishing undefeated, with an average result teetering between 10-2 and 11-1 but with 11-1 the most common outcome. As our #3 team they don't go to the national championship game but as Big Twelve winner they go to the Fiesta Bowl, where they would play Wisconsin according to our breakdown.

The NCAA was supposed to rule on Jalen Saunders but as of the start of the season hasn't; if he were eligible (instead of having to sit out a year upon transfer), it pushes Oklahoma into the top two, and into the our projected national championship game. But as of "press time" he hasn't been given the clear.

More Previews • Full coverage of all 124 FBS teams
SportsRatings 2012 College Football Pre-season Top 124