Happy Hump Day, friends and fans!

CBS Sports’ Tom Fornelli recently projected the strength of schedule for every school in the FBS, and among Big 12 schools, he predicts the Oklahoma Sooners to have the sixth toughest road through the 2020 regular season. Of course, OU is a victim (or beneficiary, depending on how you look at it) of its own success in this case because it’s unable to play itself.

Conversely, the Kansas Jayhawks have Fornelli’s strongest schedule from the Big 12 because they’re, of course, unable to play KU. Interestingly enough, the top two projected contenders to threaten Oklahoma are the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma State Cowboys, but according to these rankings OSU has a massive advantage by virtue of having the easiest road to navigate (compared to UT’s second-most challenging).

Once again, the Big 12 finds itself playing with fire in the form of its round-robin scheduling system. There are realistically only two or three teams that can survive a loss and still rebound in time to contend for the College Football Playoff. Two of them are in the Sooner State while the other resides in Austin.

Now onto today’s Hot Links! Athlon releases some preseason goodies, Oklahoma’s Cade Cavalli has a future as a barber, the Men of Troy welcome back Reggie Bush and more!

OU Links

• OU Athletic Director Joe Castiglione is not only one of the best to ever do it, he’s still at the top of his game. Fortunately for Oklahoma, he’s leading the way for all AD’s and setting the standard as collegiate sports continue to evolve. Boomer!

• Speaking of Castiglione, he went on the record today to state that he’s in favor of giving athletes and staff an off day to vote on Nov. 3.

• Athlon recently published its preseason All-Big 12 teams for 2020, and several Sooners made the first grouping, including players like C Creed Humphrey, WR Charleston Rambo, K Gabe Brkic and more.
• Also from the college football writers at Athlon comes the publication’s preseason top 25, where Oklahoma checks in at No. 7. Considering the amount of relative unknowns at some key positions, that wouldn’t be a bad spot to kick off the 2020 campaign.
• SI Sooners’ John Hoover recently broke down the latest Heisman Trophy odds heading into this fall, and it appears Spencer Rattler is the next best bet behind established winners like Ohio State’s Justin Fields and Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence.
• Sooner Softball alums Lauren Chamberlain and Shay Knighten were named to ESPN’s Greatest All-Time Softball Team. As a fan who enjoyed watching each of their careers on the diamond of Marita Hynes Field, both of these ballers are deserving of this lofty praise.

• Check out Cade Cavalli and his teammates talking about how the pitcher/first baseman found his way into the world of cutting hair.

• Speaking of Cavalli, he and a few of OU’s signees are in the discussion to be selected in the first round of the MLB draft, which begins tonight. The remaining four rounds of this year’s abbreviated draft will take place Thursday, when we could see two-sport signee Cade Horton selected by an organization.

Around the Sports World

• Reggie Bush will forever be known as one of the most dynamic and exciting college football players to ever play the sport, but part of his legacy was impacted when he was found to have received impermissible benefits from the USC Trojans as a student-athlete. It’s been 10 years since he was formally disconnected from Southern California, but today he was re-introduced back into the USC family.

• Tonight marks the start of the 2020 MLB Draft. With the coronavirus pandemic affecting how the draft’s standard operating procedure functions, check out this comprehensive guide for all the changes you can expect when teams start making their picks. The first round festivities begin this evening at 6 p.m. CT on ESPN.
• Houston Rockets point guard Russell Westbrook is at the forefront of an upcoming docuseries production that will highlight the infamously covered up Tulsa race massacre of 1921.

• Taquarius Wair is a running back for Mesabi Range College who survived a devastating house fire as a child, and on Wednesday he was announced as the recipient for the 2020 Jimmy V Award for Perseverance at this year’s ESPYS.
• Michael Jordan aka the GOAT reeled in a massive 442.3 pound blue marlin with the help of his fishing crew on Tuesday. If they ever want to make another sequel for ‘Like Mike’, I now know which direction they could go in.

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