Sooners face big second half of the season

By: Carter Baum

With a sweep of No. 6 Illinois this weekend on the road, the No. 8 Sooners improved to 12-7-1 at the mid-point of the season.

After losing three games in three days against No. 17 Arizona and No. 1 Arizona St., the Sooners needed two wins in Illinois and nothing less because the rest of the schedule is very rough.

The second half begins this weekend with two games against in-state rival No. 16 Central Oklahoma and the first half of this season hasn’t been all that different from the first half of the season last year.

Last season, heading into the UCO weekend, OU was 17-6-1. That record included being swept by then-No. 4 Arizona State and splitting a weekend with then-No. 20 Arizona. The Sooners came off the loss to Arizona and then went on to sweep then-No. 3 Lindenwood on the road the week before playing UCO. Ring a bell?

Where the script needs to change is what happened after the road sweep. The Sooners lost 5-2 and 4-0 to a then-No. 18 Central Oklahoma.

This year, the Bronchos are 10-9, but don’t let their record fool you. UCO went 3-1 this season against a No. 9 Lindenwood team that has stumbled early, much like the Sooners. The Bronchos also swept Arizona in the two days after OU couldn’t handle the Wildcats.

After UCO, Oklahoma has a short holiday break before they touch every corner of the continent. They will play two games at the Great Northwest Showcase in British Columbia, then travel to Michigan for two games against No. 2 Adrian and one game against No. 10 Oakland. Then it’s off to Alabama to play two games against Alabama-Huntsville (NCAA D-I) before a three game stretch in Arizona with a game against Arizona St. and two against Arizona.

All four weekends of games will be tough for OU. All involve lots of travel. And all are in consecutive weeks.

Add to that two more games against UCO and then another long trip to Penn St. (NCAA D-I) to finish the season, the marathon spring for OU is going to be brutal. Four games against NCAA D-I teams on the road, three games against the current top-two teams in the nation, six games against teams ranked 10-17 right now and only four home games. 

The closest thing to a break will to be two games at home against a good D2 team, Colorado State, at the end of January and a one game weekend against Iowa State a week later. Not much of a break. Oklahoma had two weekends off in the first half, but there's no stopping after Christmas. 

That brings us back to the past weekend against Illinois. The Sooners needed two wins. They got those wins. Looking ahead, they could really use another two this weekend against UCO.

The schedule from here on out doesn’t allow for missteps. If they aren’t careful, the Sooners could find themselves in the play-in games to the National Championship Tournament come March, or possibly worse.