What Does EA College Football 27 Predict for Oklahoma’s 2026 Season?

For the third year in a row, the Sooners are in the game.

EA Sports released this year’s college football video game — EA College Football 27 — earlier this week. All 136 teams that appeared in last year’s edition are back in the game, and FBS newcomers North Dakota State and Sacramento State are also included.

After Oklahoma’s 2025 run to the College Football Playoff, the Sooners are rewarded with an 87 overall rating, tied for ninth best in the game. The only SEC schools rated higher than the Sooners are Texas (89), LSU (88) and Ole Miss (88). (Georgia and Texas Tech are the two schools tied with OU at 87).

Evidently, EA Sports believes the Sooners have one of college football’s most complete. But how does the game expect them to perform throughout the course of a full season?

According to the Central Limit Theorem, a sample size of 30 is seen as reliable. We, at Sooners On SI, ran 30 simulations of OU’s 2026 season and logged wins, losses, bowl games, playoff appearances and more.

Here are the results:

Head-to-head record vs. each opponent

Oklahoma Sooners, Bryce Underwood — Oklahoma defensive lineman David Stone looks to contain Michigan's Bryce Underwood. | Carson Field / Sooners On SI

vs. UTEP: 30-0
at Michigan: 22-8
vs. New Mexico: 29-1
at Georgia: 19-11
vs. Texas: 16-14
vs. Kentucky: 25-5
at Mississippi State: 27-3
vs. South Carolina: 16-14
at Florida: 29-1
vs. Ole Miss: 19-11
vs. Texas A&M: 21-9
at Missouri: 26-4

Oklahoma had a winning record against every one of its regular-season opponents over the course of the 30 simulations.

This is remarkable, considering the competition that the Sooners will face. Three of OU’s opponents — Georgia, Ole Miss and Texas A&M — reached the College Football Playoff in 2025, while Texas and Michigan narrowly missed out. And while Mississippi State, Florida and Missouri have all yet to reach the CFP, there’s no such thing as an easy road game in the SEC.

Texas and South Carolina gave the Sooners the most fits throughout the experiment, as each program finished with a 14-16 record against them.

It’s unsurprising that Texas had moderate success against OU. The Longhorns are the highest-rated SEC team in the game, and they will go for their third win in a row against the Sooners in 2026.

It is, however, very surprising that South Carolina took down Oklahoma in 14 of the simulations. The Gamecocks went 4-8 in 2025, and with an 82 rating, they are the fifth-lowest rated SEC team in EA College Football 27, ahead of only Mississippi State, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Arkansas.

One would expect that Georgia, Ole Miss, Texas A&M or even Missouri would fare better than the Gamecocks in these simulations… but that was not the case. It’s possible that quarterback LaNorris Sellers and wide receiver Nyck Harbor — both of whom are well known as “cheat codes” in the game — helped push the Gamecocks over the top in some of the simulations.

OU had winning percentages higher than 70 percent against Missouri, Kentucky, Mississippi State and Florida. This is a good sign that the game expects the Sooners to take care of business against lesser competition for the most part.

The Sooners went undefeated against only one team, UTEP, in the simulations.

Oklahoma dropped one contest out of 30 against both Florida and New Mexico — and it’s fairly surprising that the Gators and Lobos had the same record against the Sooners.

UNM exceeded expectations in 2025, finishing 9-4 and sending Minnesota to overtime in the Rate Bowl. But the talent gap between the Lobos and Sooners is fairly large, and OU also gets the benefit of hosting the non-conference tilt.

Florida hired Jon Sumrall to replace Billy Napier in January. The Gators are under new leadership, but between the atmosphere in Gainesville and the talent on Florida’s roster, it’s a bit puzzling that they only matched New Mexico’s win total against OU.

Best seasons

Oklahoma Sooners, Xavier Robinson — Oklahoma running back Xavier Robinson scores a touchdown against Ole Miss. | Carson Field, Sooners On SI

Across this experiment, Oklahoma won the 2026 national championship five times — in Simulations 1, 7, 14, 22 and 26.

In the very first simulation, the Sooners went 9-3 in the regular season but still earned a spot in the SEC Championship Game, which they won. OU then went on a CFP run and took down Virginia to win the national title. The Sooners’ 14 total victories in that campaign marked the most in any of the simulated championships that they won.

In addition to Oklahoma’s five championships, the Sooners reached the CFP National Championship Game six other times.

The most impressive of those appearances was Simulation 30. OU won all 12 of its regular-season games before winning the SEC championship. The Sooners then won their first two CFP games before losing to SMU in the National Championship Game.

Altogether, Oklahoma reached the College Football Playoff in 20 of the 30 simulations. The Sooners reached the SEC Championship Game 14 times and won the SEC title 10 times.

Worst seasons

Oklahoma Sooners, John Mateer — Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer gets sacked against Missouri. | Carson Field, Sooners On SI

Based on these simulations, it seems like Vegas’ 7.5 win total for Oklahoma is a low-ball number.

The Sooners finished with single-digit wins in only seven of the 30 simulated seasons. Their worst record was 8-5, which they registered twice.

Simulation 16 is the worse of the two 8-5 campaigns. In addition to failing to reach expectations, Oklahoma lost its third game in a row against Texas and got stuck playing BYU in the Liberty Bowl. While not as disastrous as the Sooners’ 2024 season in which they went 6-7 and lost to Navy in the Armed Forces Bowl, this would be quite the letdown after they reached the CFP and won 10 games in 2025.

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Though OU finished with a slightly better (9-4) record, Simulation 20 also wouldn’t be ideal. The Sooners dropped three games in a row against Georgia, Texas and Kentucky before going on a five-game winning streak — only to lose to Mizzou in their regular-season finale.

OU’s reward for this up-and-down campaign? Playing against Tulsa in the Gator Bowl. Though the Sooners dismantled the Golden Hurricane 41-3 in this simulation, OU fans undoubtedly want to avoid playing against Group of Five teams in non-CFP bowl games.

Mateer’s numbers

Pre-injury and post-injury John Mateer were two very different players in 2025.

But EA Sports seemingly believes that the version of Mateer who led OU to a 4-0 record before his injury is the most accurate depiction of the quarterback.

Mateer averaged 3,602 passing yards, 27.8 touchdowns and 7.8 interceptions across the 30 simulations. He also averaged 787 rushing yards and 15.6 rushing touchdowns.

In five of the 30 seasons, Mateer won the Heisman Trophy. He also won the Maxwell Award, Davey O’Brien Award, Walter Camp Award and Johnny Unitas Golden Arm in each of his Heisman-winning seasons.

Other notable findings

Oklahoma Sooners, Taylor Wein — Oklahoma defensive end Taylor Wein logs a sack against Alabama in the CFP. | Carson Field, Sooners On SI

Mateer wasn’t alone in receiving national awards.

Taylor Wein was an award-winner in two of the 30 simulations, taking home the Chuck Bednarik Award, Bronko Nagurski Trophy, Lombardi Award and Ted Hendricks Award.

Brent Venables was named the Bear Bryant Coach of the Year in the second simulation, leading the Sooners to a 13-1 record and CFP Quarterfinals appearance in that campaign. Venables is 32-20 as Oklahoma’s coach, and his head coaching record would improve to 45-21 if the Sooners went 13-1 in 2026.

And in Simulation 26, Kip Lewis won the Dick Butkus Award, which is given annually to the nation’s top linebacker. Lewis chose to return to Oklahoma after the 2025 season despite receiving considerable interest from NFL executives.

It’s also worth mentioning how much EA College Football 27 expects OU’s run game to improve.

In 2025, the Sooners rushed for only 1,540 yards. Over the 30 simulations, Oklahoma averaged 2,398 yards on the ground. The Sooners ran for 1,894 yards in their worst simulation (Simulation 9), and that’s still well ahead of what OU achieved in that department in 2025.

Conclusion

Oklahoma Sooners, Tory Blaylock — Oklahoma running back Tory Blaylock rushes against South Carolina. | Carson Field, Sooners On SI

There’s a lot of buzz around Oklahoma and the massive step forward that it took in 2025. And according to this experiment, the hype isn’t unwarranted.

The Sooners averaged 11.3 wins per season and only 3.3 losses. Furthermore, Oklahoma averaged 6.6 SEC victories over the 30 simulations, helping the Sooners reach the CFP 20 times.

Our team at Sooners On SI ran a similar experiment last year, when EA Sports released EA College Football 26. In those 30 simulations, OU averaged 9.3 wins per season and reached the CFP 11 times.

Oklahoma proved that it can be a winner under Venables last year, and as a result, its outlook is even more favorable heading into 2026.

The Sooners will look to take the next step and make a deep run in the CFP. And according to EA College Football’s simulations, they aren’t far off.

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