The Oklahoma Sooners are on a mission this season to prove that the Southeastern Conference (SEC) is not the dominant college football entity they are perceived to be.
According to the Associated Press, Oklahoma head football coach Bob Stoops addressed his disbelief in the SEC mystique ahead of this Saturday's game against Tennessee. Playing in the Big 12, one of the Power Five conferences, Oklahoma may sometimes be forgotten in National Championship talk.
However, Oklahoma started the season toward the top of the AP's poll and have held their no. 4 spot through two weeks. Also competing this year in the Big 12 are the Baylor Bears and Kansas State Wildcats, with the Oklahoma State Cowboys just on the outside looking in.
"I don't know," Stoops told the AP of the notion that the SEC inherently has better athletes. "That hasn't been the case in our experience. Whoever we've played, that hasn't been much of a difference."
The first time Stoops voiced his opinion on the matter was the spring of 2013 when he called the media's reflection of the SEC's perceived dominance "propaganda," the AP reported. He was brushed off because Big-12-to-SEC convert Texas A&M trounced the Sooners 41-13 in the Cotton Bowl and he had lost three straight to SEC teams.
Stoops may need a win against Tennessee and a finish within the AP's top five to validate his remarks, but this year's Sooners team is a confident bunch. Their quarterback Trevor Knight is on the Heisman Trophy watch and the Sooners are coming off a Sugar Bowl win against Alabama.
Fueling Stoops' fire, Alabama head football coach Nick Saban called the bowl a "consolation game" for not making the National Championship.
"We all know coach Stoops' feelings about the SEC," Oklahoma linebacker Geneo Grissom told the AP. "As his guys, we're 100 percent behind him. We're going to make sure we help him out there and make a statement in that aspect.
"These are the games that most people are going to sit down and watch."
