Oklahoma Sooners Football: Oklahoma tops Big 12 preseason poll

The Big 12’s preseason poll has been released and, as expected, the Oklahoma Sooners are projected by the media to win a fourth consecutive conference championship in 2018.

The Sooners return 12 starters — six on offense and six on defense — from last season’s College Football Playoff team, but many of 2017’s non-starters were regular contributors. Additionally, the recent influx of talent over the last two recruiting cycles provides plenty of reason for optimism. From a talent perspective, OU may still be a year away from where it truly wants to be, but this team is certainly talented enough to make another run at a CFP berth.

As far as the rest of the poll is concerned, I would probably swap West Virginia with TCU and put Baylor ahead of Texas Tech. Other than that, the only thing to see here is the fact that Kansas State is all the way down at No. 6 with two first-place votes. This sort of goes to show that no one has any earthly idea as to how Kansas State will finish due to their potential to overachieve in any given season. Will they skate by and go 6-6, or will they have one of their breakout campaign that seemingly occurs once every 3-4 years? Don’t get me wrong — the two people who picked them to win the league are out of their minds, but I wouldn’t be too surprised by anything in the 2-9 range once it’s all said and done for K-State.