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Oklahoma Officially Back in the College Football Playoff, and Here's How (and Why) It Happened

In Brent Venables' fourth season as head coach, the Sooners are back where they belong, and now stand to reap the rewards for a fateful decision made years ago.
John Hoover|
Oklahoma players celebrate the Sooners' return to the College Football Playoff.
Oklahoma players celebrate the Sooners' return to the College Football Playoff. | Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

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Oklahoma Sooners

Oklahoma is back where it belongs — in the College Football Playoff.

Not the Alamo Bowl, or the Cheez-It Bowl, or the Armed Forces Bowl, or any other minor event in a major city, but an actual postseason game with something on the line besides a shiny trophy.

Sooner Nation hasn’t been this happy about their team’s regular-season finish since 2019.

Not only that, but for the first time ever, the Sooners will actually host a playoff game at venerable Owen Field.

The Sooners play Alabama in a rematch on Dec. 19 in Norman in what now will be argued as the biggest, most significant and most important home game in the rich history of the program.

That contest is scheduled to kick off at 7 p.m., and it will be broadcast on ESPN and ABC.

The Crimson Tide went 10-3 this season, with a 23-21 loss to the No. 11-ranked Sooners in Tuscaloosa on Nov. 15 as well as Saturday’s 28-7 loss to No. 3 Georgia in the SEC Championship Game. Bama’s midseason run of five straight wins over ranked teams — No. 5 Georgia, No. 16 Vanderbilt, No. 14 Missouri and No. 11 Tennessee — was unprecedented.

After going 10-2 in the regular season for the second time in three years, OU learned its postseason fate Sunday morning during ESPN’s CFP bracket reveal.

If Oklahoma beats Bama again, the Sooners will play top seed and Big Ten champion Indiana next in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA, on Jan. 1, 2026.

The winner of the contest between Oklahoma or Alabama and Indiana will then head to the Peach Bowl in Atlanta, GA, on Jan. 9 to play for a spot in the national title game.

The rest of the CFP bracket features four top seeds — Indiana (1), Ohio State (2), Georgia (3) and Texas Tech (4) — getting a first-round bye after Oregon (5) hosts James Madison (12), Ole Miss (6) hosts Tulane (11), and Texas A&M (7) host Miami (10) on Saturday, Dec. 20. 

The quarterfinals will be Dec. 31 (Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl), and Jan. 1 (Indiana in the Rose Bowl, Georgia in the Sugar Bowl and Texas Tech in the Orange Bowl). Semifinals are Jan. 8 and 9, and the title game is Jan. 19 in Miami.

After a midseason slump, Oklahoma comes in on a heater, having won its last four games — two on the road, two at home — by an average of less than six points. 

In Brent Venables’ fourth season, the Sooners have come to resemble their head coach: resilient, resourceful, resolute and ultimately — his words — grimy, and certainly centered on elite defense.

Venables, a former walk-on linebacker at Kansas State, grew up in a broken home, poor but proudly determined, and overcame the odds to now command an $8.55 million salary — $1 million of which he donated back to the program this year — as he helms one of college football’s flagship programs.

His 2025 team — Team 131, he calls it — has the opportunity to travel the same path: 6-7 in two of their first three years under Venables, 0-3 in minor bowl games, nothing great expected from them in their second season in the mighty SEC, with their sights set on a higher glory that no one else can see.

Oklahoma Sooners, Brent Venables and Kip Lewi
Oklahoma coach Brent Venables embraces linebacker Kip Lewis on Owen Field following the Sooners' win over LSU that clinched OU's College Football Playoff berth. | Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

OU finished in a three-way tie for fifth in the SEC standings, but now everything starts over and a national championship is the only goal — one game at a time, of course.

Ultimately, a path to the program’s eighth national title — and, yes, a substantially larger payday — is the reason why Oklahoma started the seismic shifts that college football has endured over the last five years and chose to leave the comforts of the Big 12 Conference for the challenges of the SEC.

Outgoing athletic director Joe Castiglione and OU president Joe Harroz back-channeled the Sooners’ exit from the Big 12 — simultaneously with Texas — and the news broke on July 21, 2021, that the schools intended to leave. Within a week, it was official.

Winning a national championship — something Oklahoma hasn’t done in 25 years, the longest drought in the 75 years since Bud Wilkinson won the first national title in 1950 — is the goal at OU. 

And in the Big 12, no team had won the national championship since Texas in 2005.

But in the 19 seasons since then, the SEC has won 13 national championships from five different schools: Florida, LSU, Alabama, Auburn and Georgia.

With the playoff field expansion from four teams to 12 last year, a quick look at the bracket shows why just landing a playoff invitation is so vital: the SEC has  five teams in this year’s CFP, while the Big 12 has just one.

This year alone, the CFP will pay $4 million for each school that makes the playoff, $4 million for each school that makes the quarterfinals, $6 million for each school that makes the semifinals, and $6 million for each school that makes the National Championship Game — plus $3 million for each school’s travel expenses per round. (The CFP keeps and distributes all ticket revenue, but OU can keep revenue from concessions and parking.)

From that, the SEC will distribute $3 million for each team participating in a first-round game, $3.5 million for the quarterfinals, $3.75 million for the semifinals and $4 million for the National Championship Game, plus travel expenses for each game.

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In the Big 12, those numbers are expected to fall between $2.8 million and $3.1 million per team per round, including a planned travel subsidy based on mileage traveled, per the CFP.

So from just the playoff bracket, Big 12 schools will make about $3 million per round thanks to Texas Tech, while the SEC gets $15 million for the first round alone, then more for each team that advances. 

Then there’s the actual gap in annual conference revenue distribution, which continues to widen. 

The most recent figures show Big 12 teams received between $37-42 million each for fiscal year 2024, while SEC members were paid $52 million. (OU and Texas got a partial share of $27 million as new members.) 

The SEC numbers — buoyed by a reported $300 million annual deal with ESPN/ABC — took a small step back last year but have steadily grown and have been projected to approach $100 million per member by 2030.

Meanwhile, the new Big 12 isn’t expected to surpass $50 million per member any time soon.

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John E. Hoover
JOHN 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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