Everything just changed for the Florida Gators, and the Oklahoma Sooners can claim a huge hand in ruining it
The Oklahoma Sooners have not been a great team in 2026. However, they played some of their best football against the Florida Gators and ruined their chances at the College Football Playoff.
The Oklahoma Sooners didn’t have much left to play for on Saturday in terms of their postseason hopes. In fact, there’s almost no way this team makes it into the College Football Playoff now. You can see a three-loss SEC team making it, possibly. But a four-loss team? No way.
And that’s why the win against the Florida Gators was also cool. Sure, you got to see OU win. That’s a start. And sure, it came in a way we just haven’t seen much this season—winning in all three phases. Not to mention, the Sooners looked good on offense in interim OC Jason Witten’s first game calling plays. They also pretty much knocked Florida out of the College Football Playoff race.
Coming into the week, they certainly had a chance to make it. The Gators were ranked No. 24 and had a fairly easy schedule. Beating Oklahoma, taking them to 6-3 with Kentucky, Vanderbilt, and Florida State left on their schedule, and a potential ranked win over Kentucky would have been huge for their end-of-season resume. But Oklahoma crushed all of those plans. Sure, they can’t make it themselves.
So, why not just ruin other teams’ dreams? That’s always a fun role to play. Now, according to the A to Z Sports College Football Playoff Predictor, Florida has a <1% chance of making it. And that number doesn’t change much even if they win out 8-4.
What do the Oklahoma Sooners need to focus on for their last three games?
As the season winds down, the Sooners face a tough schedule. They still have to play the Ole Miss Rebels. They’re No. 10 this week but just got smoked by the Georgia Bulldogs. They’ll be looking for a bounce-back. Then they play Texas A&M. The Aggies are 4-5 on the year. But three of their losses were by 11 points or less and were actually close games.
They just lost 17-9 to South Carolina. So, that game could be a close one. Then they finish the season out at Missouri. They just lost to Texas, but this Missouri team can hang with almost anyone in the country. They could also be looking for a big win to finish their season in what’s a rivalry game.
Oklahoma needs to use these last three games to win as much as possible. After firing OC Ben Arbuckle, you don’t really know what the impact will be on recruiting. So, win. Win as much as you can. That will help with momentum and recruiting as much as anything else. And, see what you have in Witten as the potential full-time offensive coordinator.
His first game calling plays was amazing. But was Florida playing bad because they didn’t know what to expect? And finally, if you have a shot at getting a guy like Bowe Bentley in the game, do it. There’s not much else to do, but those things definitely need to be goals.
