Oklahoma Needs To Win Convincingly Over TCU and OSU

Just a couple of years ago, style points didn't really mean much in college football. The BCS looked at wins and losses, not winning by a lot or losing by a lot. The College Football Playoff committee does however look at how much you win by, which means style points are a must. Ohio State jumped the Big 12 last year because of it, so if the conference is going to send a team to the playoff then they need one team to dominate their next two games. Baylor, OU, and OSU are those teams that need to win big, and win big against each other no less. If the Oklahoma schools win this weekend then Bedlam needs a blowout to ensure the Big 12 a spot in the playoff.

This is more so true for Oklahoma than it is Oklahoma State. At 12-0 the Cowboys are a lock for the playoff. The committee will never leave out a P5 undefeated conference champion, even if it leaves out on of their precious SEC or Big 10 teams. But a one loss conference champion is far from sure to be guaranteed a playoff spot. If that one loss champion is Oklahoma, surely they have a good chance based off name alone. But the close comparison between Notre Dame and the Sooners may lead to a tiebreaker for the committee where they look at their one common opponent, which is not ideal considering that Texas is the lone common team they've played this season.

But if the Sooners show up and beat TCU big this Saturday and beat the Cowboys on the road next week, it would be really hard to leave Oklahoma out of the playoff. The committee set a standard last year with Ohio State that if a team has a bad loss it can be forgiven. The way Ohio State was forgiven was by smashing a ranked Wisconsin in the conference championship game. If the Sooners can beat a top-ten ranked Oklahoma State on the road by double digits, I don't believe the committee would leave them out of the CFB Playoff.

On the flip side, the Sooners would need TCU, OSU, and Baylor to all look strong in the playoff committee's eyes. That means that OSU-Baylor needs to be a close OSU win and TCU-Baylor needs to be a close game either way to keep them both in the top 25. Wins against a 10-2 Baylor, 9-3 TCU, and 11-1 OSU to end the season would definitely give a huge boost to the Sooners resume at the end of the season. All three of those teams have looked very good this season and if Oklahoma can knock them all off convincingly then it should mean a playoff berth for the Sooners.