2025 Oklahoma Football Predictions: Sooners Ranked 10th in RJ Young's Ultimate 136

This isn't your average college football ranking.

My Ultimate 136 is a set of rankings that is fluid, but it's my job to look ahead and make a claim for all FBS teams based on what I know and why I know it. Here are the three pressing questions I started by asking when putting together this list:

• Who do I think is good?
• Why do I think they're good?
• What are the chances they will finish above or below my expectations?

Here is a look at where Oklahoma lands in my Ultimate 136.

Oklahoma Sooners ranking: 10
Last year’s ranking: 11
Top player: QB John Mateer: Finished 10th in FBS in total offense last season with 3,965 yards; was the only player in FBS to throw for 25+ TDs and also rush for 10+ TDs.

[Oklahoma's 2025 schedule]

RJ's take: Mateer and Jaydn Ott should form one of the two best QB-RB duos in the SEC behind Arch Manning and CJ Baxter at Texas. Mateer followed 29-year-old offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle from Washington State with the hope of being the kind of change agent Baker Mayfield was at OU. Last year, Mateer passed for 3,139 yards and rushed for 826 yards. If he can do the same at OU, stick 10 wins on the board.

Ott will be joined by three-year letter winner Jovantae Barnes to help form a duo that is fast and powerful. Barnes could've been a 1,000-yard back with 577 rushing yards in just nine games last year, and he was still OU’s leading rusher. When he was last healthy, Ott was a 1,300-yard rusher at Cal. The backfield is talented.

Oklahoma will have speed out on the numbers with wideouts Jayden Gibson and Deion Burks. And this year’s offensive line will be more experienced than last year’s, which featured a unit without a start among the five.

Brent Venables has now had two losing seasons, the first coach to hold that statistic since John Blake. But Venables is calling the defense again with at least two studs at every level: EDGE R Mason Thomas, LB Kip Lewis and safety Peyton Bowen among them. Michigan comes to Norman, and OU goes on the road to South Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama this season.

[Check out RJ Young's Ultimate 136 College Football Rankings here]

Oklahoma Win Total Odds: Over 6.5 (-184) Under 6.5 (+148)

Have an issue with my rankings? Think your alma mater is too low, or your school's rival is too high? Get at me on X, @RJ_Young, and I'll select my favorite tweets and respond to them in a future article.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports. Follow him at @RJ_Young.

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