Are the Oklahoma Sooners Really the Best Team in College Football?

These days, it’s rare to see a team survive a full-season campaign and go wire to wire as the No. 1 ranked team in college football.

Sure, we’ve seen a few teams open the season ranked in the Top Five and then move up to finish the year No. 1, but it’s very rare you see a top dog take 12 body blows without falling to the mat at least once.

This year, it will be the Oklahoma Sooners that have to deal with the preseason pressure and expectations that come along with being the nation’s top-ranked team. 

The Sooners will begin the season as college football's most hunted target.

From top to bottom, it’s obvious that the Sooners have the best team on paper in the entire country, but as we’ve seen in years past, that means nothing once the ball is finally kicked off.

There have been plenty of preseason paper champions that have folded and flopped when it came time to settle things on the field.

If you want to make a strong case for Oklahoma being the early national title favorite, you have to start with the team's two most important players.

QB Landry Jones and WR Ryan Broyles are both bona fide stars, and the two are each legitimate Heisman contenders.

Jones and Broyles will be the face of the team in 2011. However, there are other offensive playmakers, like proven receiving threat Kenny Stills and star running back recruit Brandon Williams, who should be major contributors as well.

Oklahoma's offense should be in good hands with that high octane passing duo, but the defense appears to have a few more question marks.

The defensive backfield is inexperienced and unproven. This is not helpful for a team that has to face opponents with quarterbacks like Brandon Weeden, E.J. Manuel, Ryan Tannehill and Robert Griffin III.

The defensive front seven should be solid and steady and players like DE Ronnell Lewis and LB Tony Jefferson are set to become stars. However, it remains to be seen if they can do enough to offset a suspect secondary that could end up being without its top returning player, CB Jamell Fleming, who isn’t enrolled in school right now.

If Flemming doesn’t return, that leaves CB Demontre Hurst as the only returning starter from a secondary that ranked fourth in the Big 12 in pass defense last season.

Now you could make the case that the defense won’t necessarily have to be dominant considering Jones, Broyles and the rest of the offense will be lighting up the scoreboard on a consistent basis every game. But if you want to be a true championship contender, you need to have a defense that is capable of coming up with crucial stops.

If you go back and look at Oklahoma’s losses to Missouri and Texas A&M in 2010, you’ll see that the Sooners struggled to stop the opposing offense in each contest, especially the Tigers.

The fact is, we know Oklahoma will score this year.

This is a team that’s averaged more than 40 points per game over the last four years.

The offense should be running close to all cylinders midway through September.

What we still have to find out, though, is if the defense can step up and become a force.

That means guys like DT Jamarkus McFarland, CB Gabe Lynn, DE Ronnell Lewis and LB Tom Wort have to take their game to the next level this season.

The time is now.

There is no more room for growing pains.

LB Travis Lewis, who has led the team in tackles in each of his three seasons, will be making plays for an NFL team someday. However, right now he is the undisputed leader of the Oklahoma defense, and Lewis has to make sure he keeps his unit performing at a high level.

The 2011 slate may not appear to be overly daunting, but the Sooners will surely have a couple of tough battles to fight.

The fun really starts at Florida State on Sept. 17, but there are also worthy conference challengers like Missouri, Texas, Teas A&M, Baylor and Oklahoma State that are counting the days until they can get their shot at the big boy of the Big 12.

It’s apparent that the talent is in place for a national championship run. This team definitely has the right kind of mix of proven veterans and emerging stars, but ultimately, it’s going to come down to how well the Sooners handle the spotlight.

Last year’s loss in Missouri wasn’t all that encouraging. The fact that Oklahoma has a habit of choking in big bowl games also doesn’t sit well, but remember, this is undeniably one of college football’s most powerful and prestigious programs.

A winning culture has been permeating through the fresh Norman air for decades, and it doesn’t seem as if that’s about to change any time soon .

As long as Bob Stoops, who has won over 80 percent of his games at Oklahoma, still remains the head coach, the Sooners should always be in the conversation as one of the best teams in America.

Not only are they in the conversation this year, they’re the main talking point.

Because of so many early draft declarations lately, it’s hard to say that any team is truly loaded in the traditional sense. But if there’s any team that deserves that distinction this year, it’s Oklahoma.

Oklahoma has experience and knows what it’s like to be the No. 1 ranked team in college football. However, only once during the Stoops era have the Sooners had the privilege of finishing the season as the undisputed top-ranked team.

Will that change in 2011?

It remains to be seen, but it's clear that the expectations and hype are already in place.

It's easy to get excited when looking at the type of talent on Oklahoma's depth chart, but it's also fairly easy to spot some noticeable holes.

Oklahoma deserves to be the 2011 preseason paper champions of June, July and August, but it's what the Sooners do in September, October and November that will really count.