Sooners have a massive advantage in four of their 2026 games that could also end up being huge wildcards
Brent Venables and the Oklahoma Sooners have to be looking forward to their 2026 schedule.
The SEC released the full 2026 schedule for every team in the conference. It’s hard to say whether the Oklahoma Sooners have a good or bad schedule yet, or just how hard it is, because so much can happen between now and the start of next season. But there are four games that the Sooners have a massive advantage in, which could also be wildcards.
In 2026, the Sooners are set to play a good non-conference schedule against the UTEP Miners, the Michigan Wolverines, and the New Mexico Lobos.
Then they play the Georgia Bulldogs, Florida Gators, Kentucky Wildcats, and Texas A&M Aggies, teams they have yet to play since joining the SEC. Four of the teams they play in 2026 will have new coaches, some of them first-time head coaches. That’s an advantage for the Sooners.
Sooners to play four teams with new head coaches in 2026
The end of the 2025 season has seen a handful of teams make head coaching changes. The Florida Gators fired Billy Napier and hired Tulane head coach Jon Sumrall. Ole Miss lost Lane Kiffin to the LSU Tigers, and former defensive coordinator Pete Golding is set to take over in 2026 and in the 2025 College Football Playoff.
Kentucky fired Mark Stoops, brother of Bob Stoops, and hired Will Stein, the Oregon Ducks’ offensive coordinator. Michigan is having some head coaching issues that are making national headlines, so we really don’t have to bring that up, but they are also set to have a new head coach. Three of those are first-time head coaches.
That’s a massive advantage for Brent Venables when it comes to game planning for those games next season. Now, that doesn’t mean that’s a win, but the Sooners have the coaching advantage, for sure.
Those games are also now wildcards, because we have no idea how good they will be under new leadership. We have no idea how well they will recruit from the transfer portal. There are a lot of things we don’t know about those teams, so it’s very hard to predict whether those are wins or not. But we do know that Oklahoma will have the best head coach in every single one of those games.
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