Where Oklahoma ranks in ESPN’s FPI Top 25 summer rankings
With the 2021 college football season fast approaching, it is time again for ESPN’s updated Football Power Index top 25 summer rankings. ESPN’s FPI is a measurement of a team’s predicted success for the duration of the upcoming season, evaluating how many points a team is above or below average. This is via the results based on 10,000 simulations among other methods to predict which programs will be contenders in 2021.
In this top 25 compilation, Oklahoma lands at No. 2 behind the Alabama Crimson Tide. The algorithm puts Alabama, OU, Clemson, Iowa State and Ohio State in the top five of ESPN’s FPI rankings.
247 Sports highlighted takeaways from each program listed.
This could be Lincoln Riley’s best team in Norman, and if Spencer Rattler plays like a Heisman candidate, the Sooners will be a tough out.
Per the FPI projections, Oklahoma is once again the team to beat in the Big 12, but the Sooners have serious competition. There’s a lot of buzz around Norman moving through spring camp for a team that’s been put on a pedestal with other national title frontrunners. But they’ll have to earn it, says Lincoln Riley, who knows this year’s squad has what it takes — on paper — to be elite. Heisman candidate Spencer Rattler is considered college football’s top returning player at his position by most and enjoyed a breakout campaign in 2020. Now comes the hard part, his encore when being a marked man for the Sooners.
Oklahoma sits atop the Big 12 hierarchy, winning the Big 12 title every year since 2015. Always a front-runner for the college football playoff conversation but a team that has not made it past the semifinal or to the coveted prize, a national championship. Talent and balance wise, the squad is poised for the grandest stage in college football.
Alex Grinch turned the defense around with his focus on pressure, physicality and turnovers in a hybrid 3-4, 4-2-5 system in Norman. The defense is no longer holding the team back, but elevating it.
Riley has created one of the most explosive offenses in the nation, surrounding ascending star Spencer Rattler. There are lofty expectations placed on his shoulders for Year 2 after his 2020 stellar campaign as a redshirt freshman. After struggling early on with ball security and gaining confidence, Rattler emerged during the second half of the season with ease. He took the college football world by storm with arm-talent, off-platform throws and tight-window accuracy. Rattler’s diagnosis of defenses improved down the stretch and being the first quarterback Lincoln Riley has developed, his production will only increase from the offensive guru’s mentorship.
The Crimson and Cream must once again earn and prove the hype on the turf. The work being done during the summer will breed success come fall. The talent level is there, now it is about execution. Can Oklahoma break out of the stigma and win it all?
