Sooners ranked No. 3, Cowboys No. 21 in preseason AP Top 25 poll
With the start of the college football season just a little less than two weeks away, the Oklahoma and Oklahoma State football teams find themselves in The Associated Press Top 25 preseason poll.
The Sooners and Cowboys will open the season as the No. 3 and No. 21 teams in the nation, respectively.
Defending champs Alabama were voted No. 1, and Clemson, which defeated OU 37-17 in last season's Orange Bowl in the College Football Playoffs, are ranked No. 2. Florida State and LSU round out The AP's Top 5.
Outside the state of Oklahoma, only two other Big 12 teams are ranked in the preseason poll. TCU starts the year ranked No. 13, and Baylor -- which is under new leadership after an investigation into the program's and university's failure to comply with Title IX regulations and rape culture on campus -- is ranked No. 23.
Although unranked, Texas is the only other Big 12 school to receive votes.
Other than each other, OU and Oklahoma State play a combined six teams who will open the season ranked in the Top 25.
The Sooners open the season with two of their first three games being against No. 15 Houston on Sept. 3 at NRG Stadium in Houston -- a game that can be seen at 11 a.m. on KOCO 5 -- and No. 6 Ohio State on Sept. 17 at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman. The other two ranked games are against TCU on Oct. 1 in Fort Worth and Baylor on Nov. 12 in Norman.
Both of the Cowboys' games against teams to open the season in the AP Top 25 come on the road. They start their Big 12 schedule with Baylor in Waco and face TCU on No. 19 in Fort Worth, just two weeks before squaring off in the yearly Bedlam Series. The currently ranked Bedlam matchup is set for Dec. 3 in Norman.
The AP Top 25 poll in its entirety can be found below:
1. Alabama (33)
2. Clemson (16)
3. Oklahoma (4)
4. Florida State (5)
5. LSU (1)
6. Ohio State (1)
7. Michigan (1)
8. Stanford
9. Tennessee
10. Notre Dame
11. Ole Miss
12. Michigan State
13. TCU
14. Washington
15. Houston
16. UCLA
17. Iowa
18. Georgia
19. Louisville
20. USC
21. Oklahoma State
22. North Carolina
23. Baylor
24. Oregon
25. Florida
Numbers in parenthesis denote first-place votes.