Josh Pate thinks this game will tell a lot about Oklahoma this year

The Oklahoma Sooners didn’t get to enjoy many high points in a six-win 2024 season. However, one of the undoubted highlights of the season was a 27-21 comeback win over the Auburn Tigers on the road at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

Behind true freshman backup quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr. and an incredible fourth-quarter pick-six by linebacker Kip Lewis, OU stormed back from a 21-10 deficit to win their first-ever Southeastern Conference game.

The Tigers make the return trip to Norman this year in Week 4. It’s the SEC opener for the Sooners, part of the gateway to a daunting league slate.

Josh Pate, who hosts “Josh Pate’s College Football Show”, believes that the Oklahoma-Auburn matchup is a crucial one for both teams in the early portion of the season, because of how deep the conference is.

“Let’s go to Auburn at Oklahoma in Week 4 because it is a huge game,” Pate said. “Auburn at Oklahoma features the No. 10 and the No. 11 teams in the SEC odds right now … But here’s what’s funny about that: No. 10 and No. 11 in the SEC makes it sound like those teams are going to be terrible. But get this, they’re 17th and 18th in the College Football Playoff odds … It’s really just the fact that the SEC is pretty deep. Now we don’t know how many elite teams there will be, but there are a lot of pretty good teams, theoretically, in the SEC this year.”

Pate also noted that both head coaches in this matchup are already on thin ice, and neither did much to help themselves last season. He also noted that both squads have difficult nonconference matchups before this game that could play a part in how they’re being viewed at the time.

“In this game we’ve got two head coaches in their third year that both have to get it done,” Pate said. “Hugh Freeze at Auburn, Brent Venables at Oklahoma … By the time they play this game in Norman in…

Source link : https://soonerswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/sooners/football/2025/04/30/oklahoma-sooners-football-auburn-tigers-jackson-arnold-venables/83354589007/

Author :

Publish date : 2025-04-30 14:01:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.