Each season in college football serves as a fresh start. The Oklahoma Sooners anxiously await theirs after a disappointing 2024 campaign. But is OU being overlooked? Could this be a team that exceeds national expectations?
Josh Pate, national college football analyst for 247Sports and CBS Sports, spent time on ‘Josh Pate’s College Football Show’ detailing why he feels Oklahoma might be one of the most underappreciated teams in all of college football as the 2025 season approaches:
Pretty simple, I believe the roster is one of the most underrated in the country,” Pate said. “Because they were terrible last year, record wise, because their offense was a disaster. But I don’t think the team was a disaster.”
Before labeling OU a “bad team,” it is crucial to take into account the layers. The starting offensive line only played together for a few quarters of the season, the Sooners lost their top seven receivers to injury, and the young quarterback position led to an excessive number of turnovers. All of this also put a highly skilled and successful defense in a challenging position.
Oklahoma’s good is back. In preparation for a new season, the Sooners have also put a lot of effort into fixing the issues.
“Think what we’re looking at here is a top-20, top-15 caliber defense that largely returns at that level,” Pate said. “And I think that the quarterback, offensive coordinator combination there, one and the same. Usually those come from different places, but they both came from the same place. I think it greatly enhances and rejuvenates their offensive firepower ability. And elsewhere, there are like three top-ten caliber classes baked into the roster.”
“I just think they’re really underrated, and so I don’t care about last year because they addressed problems from last year,” said Pate. “This isn’t a sport where you simply put it on hold in late December and then put it back on in August. I don’t think bowl momentum exists. None of that ever made sense to me. No carryover occurs. For example, the outcomes vary greatly from year to year. throughout the nation in this sport.”
Following is the source of Pate’s annoyance: Frequently, the argument against a squad is based solely on a previous season. However, because to the amount of change that occurs inside these programs, each year must be examined somewhat in a vacuum. When a new year starts, it is not helpful to look at a squad solely through the prism of what has already been observed. Pate believes that Oklahoma isn’t being appropriately portrayed because of this idea.
“Just boggles my mind how everyone seems to get amnesia about this stuff,” Pate said. “You watch the same thing I watch every fall. You watch teams look nothing like they looked last year, case by case, every fall. And yet come spring, so many people cannot divorce themselves from the last thing they saw last year as it relates to predicting this year. That is an overwhelming sentiment, and that’s why the public overwhelmingly loses when they try to bet on this stuff. And yet so many people just cling to it. It’s crazy.”
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