Today we continue the alligatorSports’ countdown of the top 10 college football teams heading into the 2010 season with the No. 9 team in our poll: the Oklahoma Sooners.
The Sooners are coming off a disappointing season in which they finished 8-5 and were relegated to a trip to the Sun Bowl against Stanford. The bowl game marked just the third time in the last decade that Oklahoma did not play in a BCS bowl game.
The seven BCS bowls for the Sooners since 2000 speak to the consistency of Oklahoma’s program, and that is in large part due to who the team has roaming the sidelines – Bob Stoops.
Stoops, who is entering his 12th season as OU’s head coach, has built up quite a program during his tenure in Norman, Okla.
Over the span of Stoops’ head coaching career, the Sooners have gone 117-29, and have only lost at home twice.
Needless to say, Stoops knows how to build a team through recruiting, and then coach that talent up to its potential on the field.
This year should be no different, as Stoops helped Oklahoma bring in another elite recruiting class, which Rivals.com ranked as the seventh-best in the nation.
After last season’s 8-5 disappointment, the Sooners were ravaged by the NFL Draft, having four players drafted in the first round and seven in total were selected.
The most notable thing about the draft was that three of the first four picks in the draft were Sooners, including Sam Bradford, the 2008 Heisman winner who was drafted No. 1 overall by the St. Louis Rams.
Despite losing Bradford to the NFL, Oklahoma is already used to life without the Heisman winner. The team lost him to a shoulder injury at the beginning of last season, and despite an effort to return, lost him for the entire year.
Fortunately for the Sooners, rising redshirt sophomore Landry Jones proved to be a capable heir to Bradford as he threw for 3,198 yards and 26 touchdowns last season. Jones also threw 14 interceptions, in his first year under center.
Jones won’t be the only offensive weapon the Sooners return, as senior running back DeMarco Murray will be in the backfield again this year. Murray ran for 705 yards and eight touchdowns while gaining 522 yards and four scores through the air.
Oddsmakers list both Jones and Murray as Heisman contenders going into the season.
The Sooners also lost tight end Jermaine Gresham, but return a veteran receiving corps that includes junior Ryan Broyles, who caught 89 passes for 1,120 yards and 15 touchdowns in 2009.
On the other side of the ball, OU returns rising junior linebacker Travis Lewis, who led the team in tackles for the last two seasons, defensive end Jeremy Beal, who led the team in sacks last season with 11, and senior safety Quinton Carter, who tied for the team lead in interceptions and was second to Lewis in tackles.
Even though the Sooners lost some elite talent to the NFL Draft, the cupboards are not bare. Combine the team returning some of its best skill players with a top recruiting class and Stoops at the helm, and the Sooners will field another team that will vie for a Big 12 title.
