Sooners face toughest opening schedule

NORMAN — OU opens the 2016 season against Houston in NRG Stadium. That’s 13th-ranked Houston.

After a scrimmage against Louisiana-Monroe, the Sooners host Ohio State in one of the most-anticipated games at Owen Field in decades. That’s fifth-ranked Ohio State.

After a bye week, the Sooners play at TCU, which is picked to be OU’s chief competitor for Big 12 supremacy. That’s 14th-ranked TCU.

The next week, the Sooners return to the Metroplex for a game on the other end of the Tom Landry Freeway. Texas, in the Cotton Bowl. That’s unranked Texas, but that’s

also get-fired-up-forthe-State Fair-Texas, which three straight years in the shadow of Big Tex has punched the Sooners right in the nose.

Do the math. That’s four tough games among OU’s first five skirmishes. Four losable games.

That’s one of the best ways to measure college football schedules. Losable games. The sport is plagued by unlosable games. Any team stocked with losable games is honorable and fighting well above the norm.

And four losable games before Oct. 2 is a brutal schedule that makes for not only a stiff September, but a rugged August. There will be no coasting into the 2016 season for the Sooners.

“We’ve got to get a lot of strong, physical work in against each other,” Bob Stoops said. “You just have to strike the right balance of keeping yourself healthy, too. It doesn’t do any good to be all physical and tough and half your team’s sitting on the sideline for the first game.”

The Sooners routinely play a proud schedule. But OU didn’t actually sign up for this kind of pride. Houston, in Houston, was an intriguing opener. Then the Cougars played superbly last season under new coach Tom Herman and quarterback Greg Ward Jr., went 13-1 and beat Florida State in the Peach Bowl. And so a summer that would have been spent with all eyes on Ohio State instead has been diverted to the opener.

“It definitely has changed our mindset,” said defensive tackle Matt Dimon. “We know we have to be ready right from the jump, right from the start, when we go down to Reliant (NRG). They’re going to be a really tough team.”

OU doesn’t necessarily have the nation’s toughest schedule. But no team’s first five games compares to the Sooners’.

Probably Texas comes closest — No. 9 Notre Dame, Texas-El Paso, at California, at No. 19 OSU, No. 3 OU in Dallas.

Or maybe Ole Miss — fourth-ranked Florida State in Orlando, Wofford, No. 1 Alabama, No. 16 Georgia and Memphis.

Stanford has Kansas State, No. 17 Southern Cal, at No. 24 UCLA, at No. 18 Washington and Washington State. Three top-25 teams, but none in the top 15.

Georgia has No. 20 North Carolina in Atlanta, Nicholls State, at Missouri, at No. 12 Ole Miss and No. 10 Tennessee.

But four losable games? Only one of the four in Norman? Not vulnerable games. Not trap games. Four slobber-knocking games where even playing well doesn’t guarantee victory.

“Not only practice, but the summer workouts were a little bit different, too, just because we realize we have to be ready from the get-go,” quarterback Baker Mayfield said. “The first game is against a very good opponent and our season, the front part of it, is very loaded up. We can’t have any rust to knock off.”

Time was, a start like this was ordinary. In 1994, Gary Gibbs’ final team played four nonconference games — at Syracuse, when the Orange was a solid Eastern power; at Texas A&M; home against Texas Tech; and Texas. Only Iowa State was sprinkled into that quartet.

Barry Switzer’s teams in the 1980s almost always played three or four legitimate nonconference opponents. Bud Wilkinson’s teams often had Texas and either Notre Dame or Southern Cal among the first three or four games. Heck, Bob Stoops’ 2002 Sooners played Alabama and UCLA.

But three top-15 opponents in the first five games, plus Texas? In 2016, when scheduling soft has become an art? That’s starting uphill against the wind.

“We know that last year, our first game was Akron,” said fullback Dmitri Flowers. “So we kind of talked about it before camp started. We have to start like it’s the middle of the season. So I’d say we’re more focused as a team instead of just running around with our heads cut off because camp started. Don’t get me wrong. We’re still excited now. But we know it’s coming fast, it’s coming soon. We can’t take as long as we did last year to get in a rhythm. We have to start from the first game.”

And it can’t stop there. Even bigger fish follow Houston.