Overlooked teams: Oklahoma labeled as most underrated in 2025

The ranking of No. 18 Oklahoma may be all over the place, especially considering the changes made in Norman this offseason. That said, Josh Pate knows exactly where he is on the Sooners, having had them as underrated for some time now.

Appearing on ESPN’s ‘Get Up’ on Thursday, Pate named OU as his most underrated team coming into this season in college football. That’s due to the fact that he doesn’t think the Sooners are as far gone as some would think after they went 6-7 overall last season. Specifically, Pate feels this following Oklahoma’s offensive additions of OC Ben Arbuckle and QB John Mateer.

“They don’t feel underrated to me because I’ve been banging the drum since February basically,” Pate said. “I’m going with Oklahoma.”

“The season was terrible last year. They looked like a terminally flawed team. They weren’t,” Pate said. “It’s a bunch of top-ten recruiting classes stacked on top of each other. Really good staff. They had a terminally flawed QB-OC combination. They rectified that, brought in a QB-OC from Washington State.”

Again, 6-7 is a record that Oklahoma has had in two of three seasons under Brent Venables, with this one looking much worse due to it being the first season as a member of the Southeastern Conference. Still, as noted by Pate, only one thing was really as bad as that mark suggested for the Sooners.

Off the field, OU has been adding to its roster with all four classes of this tenure so far being in the Top 20, including the first three being in the Top 10 from 2022 to 2024. Then, on the field, the defense has only gotten better over three years under Venables, allowing just 21.5 points and 318.2 yards last season. However, the Sooners’ offense completely fell off to being their worst this century at just 24.0 points and 331 yards per game.

In turn, that led to the firing of OC Seth Littrell by mid-October and the transfer of QB Jackson Arnold, who was benched for a time for QB Michael Hawkins. In December, the Sooners then brought in Arbuckle as their new offensive coordinator and Mateer, the No. 3 overall transfer per On3 and the No. 2 QB in the sport, per Pate as his pick to win The Heisman Trophy, from the portal as their new quarterback, after the two worked for a unit last year at Wazzu that posted 36.6 points, which was sixth-most nationally, and 442.8 yards per game.

Assuming all goes well, namely offensively, for Oklahoma, Pate is high on it this season. He is even considering the Sooners for an at-large spot in the College Football Playoff. Still, regardless, he has the them having a better second year than their first in the Southeastern Conference.