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Oklahoma Lands Third in Big 12 Preseason Poll

Texas is the prohibitive favorite to win this year’s Big 12 title.
John E. Hoover|
Jerome Miron / USA TODAY Sports

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Oklahoma Sooners

If Oklahoma is going to challenge for its 15th and final Big 12 Conference football championship, the Sooners are going to have to prove the doubters wrong. 

For the first time since the conference went to a divisionless format, Texas was picked atop the Conference's 2023 preseason poll as voted on by media representatives. The league announced the voting results on Thursday afternoon. 

A day after landing only one player (defensive end Ethan Downs) on the All-Big 12 team, the Sooners were voted third in the preseason poll behind Texas and defending champ Kansas State.

It's just the fourth time in the last 13 years, Oklahoma is not the preseason media choice to win the Big 12.

If Texas wins the league in its final Big 12 season, it would be its fourth crowned first since 2009. That's tied for the second-most among all Big 12 members. OU — also leaving for the SEC after this academic year — leads the way with 14 Big 12 titles in 27 years.

The Longhorns were slotted fourth in last year's preseason poll behind Baylor, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

First-place votes were spread among six teams with Texas receiving 41 and a total of 886 points. The reigning Big 12 Champion, Kansas State, placed second with 14 and 858 points. 

Oklahoma and Texas Tech each received four first-place votes with 758 and 729 points, respectively. TCU, coming off appearances in the Big 12 Championship Game and CFP National Championship Game, rounded out the top five with three first-place votes and 727 points.

Baylor gathered 575 points to place sixth while Oklahoma State secured the final first-place vote with 470 points for seventh place. The remaining positions were UCF in eighth, (463 points), Kansas in ninth, (461 points), Iowa State in 10th, (334 points), BYU in 11th, (318 points), Houston in 12th, (215 points), Cincinnati in 13th (202 points) and West Virginia in 14th (129 points).

Big 12 Football Media Days will be conducted next Wednesday and Thursday, July 12-13. Coverage from both days will be provided on ESPNU and Big 12 Now on ESPN+. 

Big 12 Media Relations and OU Media Relations contributed to this report.

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John E. Hoover
JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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