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OU is officially in the College Football Playoff, will host Alabama in first round (Dec. 19)

headshotby: George Stoia12 hours agoGeorgeStoia

OU is officially in the College Football Playoff. 

Ranked No. 8 in the final CFP rankings, the Sooners will face No. 9 Alabama in the first round of the playoffs in Norman. The game will be played at Gaylord-Family Memorial Stadium next Friday (Dec. 19) at 7 p.m. on ESPN and ABC.

OU beat Alabama earlier this season 23-21 in Tuscaloosa.

There was no controversy surrounding OU getting into the playoffs. Boasting one of the best resumes in the country, the Sooners are ranked as the highest two-loss team. That’s because they had a November to remember, beating Alabama and Tennessee on the road and finishing their season with wins over Missouri and LSU at home. 

“I’d just love an invitation,” coach Brent Venables said of the playoffs after the LSU game. “I don’t care if it’s on the road. And I say I don’t care, of course I would love to be here, but I spend no time looking at that and I’m going to fight for this or that. I don’t know. They’re not listening to me. There’s plenty of things to look at for them to make the decisions they make. I’m sure it’s not easy. Wherever they ask us to play, we’ll show up.”

This season has been quite the turnaround for Venables and OU. Last year, the Sooners were the laughingstock of the SEC, going 6-7 in their first season in the conference. But this year, with a veteran defensive team and a new-look offense, they have flipped the narrative.

“In the locker room, we talked about that a lot,” Venables said. “We’ve been talking about it and we talked about it last night. We had 25 seniors that we recognized and the things that several of those guys have been through, a good part of them have been through, you’re incredibly thankful and proud. Again, you judge a tree by its fruit, and a fruit in this business is winning. A fruit at this school is being in the conversation and having a season that’s worthy to talk about. We still haven’t done anything, quote unquote.

“But we’ve built on a really good foundation. All of our best days are sitting in front of us still. And still haven’t played our best four quarters of football.”

OU likely will be an underdog in the playoffs. Many don’t expect much from the Sooners because of the way they have won games, with a stellar defense and stagnant offense. But that’s fine by them.

Few thought they would be in this position before the season. And now that they’re in, they hope to keep proving those people wrong.

“If anything, we’re comfortable when it ain’t going great, when it’s tight,” Venables said. “I think that this is a team that has poise in those moments, being battle-tested. I think there’s confidence in the things that we’ve had to go through and overcome. Again, the teams that we’re playing have the ability to punch back, so it’s not like we’re going against a bunch of chumps. We’re going against elite players, elite coaches and this is a team that’s, again, as we described them, they know how to find a way in those moments and just keep playing, keep throwing punches back.

“Certainly, it’s prepared us. Every one of these miscues that you have to overcome and we are able to overcome, I think it just strengthens you. Those scars are things that you lean on.”

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