Will Oklahoma’s Road Success From Last Year Carry Into 2026?

NORMAN — A year ago, the Sooners were road warriors.

Oklahoma logged a perfect 4-0 record in true away contests, taking down Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina and Temple in hostile venues.

The Sooners will play their first game away from Norman of 2026 on Saturday when they battle Michigan in Ann Arbor.

“I think there’s a certain level of confidence that comes from having done it and gone through it,” OU coach Brent Venables said.

In particular, OU’s late-season road wins over Tennessee and Alabama paved the way for the Sooners to reach the College Football Playoff for the first time since 2019.

Quarterback John Mateer, for the most part, played sound football in those games. He didn’t put up gaudy numbers in either contest, but he avoided costly mistakes and allowed his team to earn two key ranked wins.

Mateer knows that he and his offensive teammates must again play a clean game in Ann Arbor, and he looks forward to the challenge.

“I don’t think it’ll be a shock for me and the guys that did it last year, but it’s still brand new, new excitement, new week, new opportunity,” Mateer said. “I’ll only get to play there once in my whole life, so I’m going to take it in.”

Obviously, the defense played a key part in the Sooners’ 2025 late-season wins, too.

Against Tennessee, Oklahoma forced three takeaways en route to its 33-27 win. Two weeks later, the Sooners escaped Tuscaloosa with a 23-21 victory after forcing three turnovers and allowing Alabama to score only seven points in the second half.

Senior safety Peyton Bowen has gotten the chance to compete in plenty of road games throughout his college career, and he sees benefits to playing away from home.

“For (the defense), I like away games because it's quiet,” Bowen said. “We can communicate a little bit better especially with everything we've got going on.”

Michigan Stadium, appropriately nicknamed “The Big House,” is the largest venue in college football, holding 107,601 seats.

Last year, the Sooners played at two stadiums that hold more than 100,000 seats — Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium and Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium. The year before that, they battled LSU in the 102,321-seat Tiger Stadium.

Though Michigan’s opener against Western Michigan — which the Wolverines won 13-12 — wasn’t particularly impressive, the Wolverines have plenty of talent on both sides of the ball. Pair that with Michigan Stadium’s raucous atmosphere, and it makes for a difficult Week 2 game for Oklahoma.

Venables sees the clash of blue-bloods as an important early-season challenge.

“I think as a competitor, as a coach here, you enjoy going on the road and having an opportunity to help control the environment going into these hostile places,” Venables said. “The day gets loud, they’re going to make their plays. So how do you gain the momentum? How do you not flinch? How do you punch back?

“I think that builds you from just having the right type of poise, the right type of mentality, the right type of leadership that will, you know, come from the experience that our guys gained a year ago.”

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