It’s all too perfect. Everything fit and everyone is happy.
Three favorites, three conference champions, one neat College Football Playoff package.
MORE: CFP: How teach team wins (or loses) | Expanded playoff?
And somehow, Oklahoma has gotten lost in all of this.
The team that’s playing better than anyone since an unthinkable loss to Texas; the team with the hottest player in the game and toughest November road to the playoff, is the team to beat in the CFP.
They’re not the most complete team (Clemson) or playoff-hardened (Alabama), or the team with the most thrilling finish of the season (Michigan State). They're just the forgotten while sitting home on championship weekend.
"We feel really good about where we are right now,” says Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops.
Why wouldn’t he? Since early October, the Sooners have been in win or walk mode — and have not only gotten better each week, but developed a unique chemistry not seen in Norman since that magical 2000 team that won it all.
That OU team had a scrappy quarterback and an underrated run game and a defense that could force opponents into the uncomfortable. What team does that sound like?
That team played an ACC team full of skilled athletes and the Heisman Trophy winner in the BCS National Championship Game. Oklahoma will play No. 1 Clemson (and maybe the Heisman winner) in the Orange Bowl CFP semifinal, the same place the Sooners won its only national title under coach Bob Stoops.
“That team had to prove itself every week,” said OU defensive coordinator Mike Stoops, the Sooners’ defensive coordinator on the 2000 team. “And that’s not unlike this team. That’s the stuff that keeps teams focused on the same goal no matter what’s going on outside.”
PATHS TO THE PLAYOFF: Clemson | Alabama | Michigan State | Oklahoma
Oklahoma hasn’t been this zeroed in since the end of the 2013 season, when a loss to Texas and an embarrassing loss to Baylor had the Sooners rolling into the Sugar Bowl as a significant underdog against an Alabama team that was a Kick Six from playing for it all.
That bowl game ended in Alabama’s worst loss under Nick Saban, and underscored a turn OU had made back toward the elite of the game. Then quarterback Trevor Knight regressed as a sophomore in 2014, and suddenly Bob Stoops couldn’t coach again.
But now we know why Stoops and the Oklahoma administration tried so hard to get then walk-on transfer Baker Mayfield eligible last season. Why would the Sooners push so hard for Mayfield, when Knight was the Sugar Bowl hero, you ask?
Because no matter how good Knight was, he wasn’t Mayfield. There’s a difference between a player who gets hot, and a player who can carry a team.
A player who’s infectious; whose personality and playing style fuels his team. A player who can be the difference between a five-loss season and losing a bowl game by 34 points, to playing that same team a year later in the national semifinals with a chance to win it all.
“This team will not back down from anything,” Mayfield said. “Nothing will distract us from where we’re headed.”
Least of all being lost in the championship weekend moment.