Members of ESPN College Gameday Crew pick Sooners to win National Championship
With six days to go until the Oklahoma Sooners kickoff against the Tulane Green Wave (hopefully), the expectations and anticipation have reached a boiling point. Soon, it will be time to play football. But until then, we’ll get more predictions from local and national observers.
ESPN’s College Gameday made their national title predictions on the first college football Saturday show yesterday. Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard chose the Sooners to hoist the national championship come January.
The College Gameday crew makes their National Title predictions.
"I got Oklahoma and Lincoln Riley finally with all these tweaks … They've made adjustments to the defense. They beat Alabama in the national championship." — Kirk Herbstreit#OUDNA | #BoomerSooner pic.twitter.com/qRgIEN1q9s
— Sooner Gridiron (@soonergridiron) August 28, 2021
Every member of the crew had the Sooners in their prediction of the College Football Playoff, but just Herbstreit and Howard had the Sooners winning it all. Lee Corso had the Sooners making the championship game before losing to the Georgia Bulldogs, who were the only other team picked to win the title on the panel.
Oklahoma is as talented as they’ve been under Lincoln Riley, and because of that, the expectations are sky-high. Alex Grinch has helped that defense progress each of his two seasons in Norman, and there’s no reason to believe they won’t take another step forward in 2021.
As the six-time defending Big 12 champion and favorites again in 2021, the question that continues to linger for the Sooners is what they’ll do when they get to the College Football Playoff.
Against Clemson, they were able to keep the game close before Deshaun Watson, and the Tigers pulled away in the second half. They had the game well in hand against Georgia before a second-half comeback allowed the Bulldogs to tie the game and win it in overtime. Though the score wasn’t as bad as the game looked, Alabama jumped out to a big lead against the Kyler Murray-led Sooners, who attempted to mount a ferocious second-half comeback, but couldn’t quite close the gap. And against Joe Burrow’s LSU, the Sooners ran into arguably the greatest offensive team college football’s ever seen.
Can the Sooners exorcise the demons in 2021, push through the semi-finals, and contend for the national championship? Two of ESPN’s experts seem to think so.
As the Sooners enter Tulane week, as Lincoln Riley would say, “talking season is over.” It’s time to go put it on the field.
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What did Big 12 coaches say to Athlon Sports about the Oklahoma Sooners?
