2024 Schedule: Now That We've Had Time to Digest it--What Are Your Thoughts About Our Schedule for the Coming Season???

[TropicalSooner]

51 games before the B12 Championship Series.
22 games at Loves' Field
2 games at Hall of Fame Stadium
Out of Conference Tournaments at
Puerto Vallarta
McNeese State in Lake Charles, LA
Mary Nutter

Only 5 games against Power 5 Conf opponents outside the B12.

I'm not sure if that was intentional? Or if we are having a real issue with teams not wanting to schedule us?
How does this play into how we perform this coming season? What will our motivation be? Who will be our "Trap Games" if any?

Many of you will have opinions on all of this--
Would love to hear what you think.

[oufanforever]

Duke and Washington will obviously be early tests, a trap game I can see is Wisconsin at the Nutter. OU is not going to lose on the opening weekend of Love's Field, sorry to Miami OH, Louisiana, and Liberty. Liberty would have been a potential trap game but not that weekend.

[The Far Journey]

It does seem illogical for a top team to duck OU, though that seems to be what's happened over the last few years. They're not going to go undefeated and the softball committee is hardly going to penalize them for a loss to OU. In fact, they'll be rewarded for playing a tough opponent. They also get to test themselves against the best, and maybe if OU has an off day, pull off the upset.

As for the schedule, I'd like to see slightly tougher opponents along the way, but this is good enough. Patty will get to see a lot of her players in action and be ready for the end of the season. I just hope they'll all be televised.

[waddy's ghost]

Barring catastrophic injuries I think this slate sets up well for #8

[OU_Tom]

The last 2 seasons OU played extremely difficult schedules that were loaded with top 20 opponents. This year's schedule doesn't have many top 20 opponents in the out of conference games

[MontOUfan]

Having three fewer weekends due to a larger conference schedule is a big factor. At the same time, all these teams did win 39 or more games last year: Wichita State, Liberty, Central Arkansas, McNeese State, Louisiana, and San Diego State.

[OU_Tom]

Having three fewer weekends due to a larger conference schedule is a big factor. At the same time, all these teams did win 39 or more games last year: Wichita State, Liberty, Central Arkansas, McNeese State, Louisiana, and San Diego State.

I totally agree that the longer conference schedule is a big factor; it only leaves 4 weeks for out of conference games. Another big factor is which early season tournaments that OU plays in. Here are the teams with ‘higher’ rankings in the out of conference tournaments.

Puerto Vallarta

Team	2023 RPI Ranking
Duke	10
Washington	12

McNeese State in Lake Charles, LA

Team	2023 RPI Ranking
McNeensy	31
Central Arkansas	20

Mary Nutter

Team	2023 RPI Ranking
San Diego St	27
Mississippi St	48
Long Beach State	79
Wisconsin	58
Notre Dame	45

For some unknown reason there is no UCLA-OU matchup at Mary Nutter. OU has played in this tournament for years. Maybe it is time to stop going to Mary Nutter? In the last 10 years, OU’s best recruits have always come out of California so maybe you want to keep going to Mary Nutter for that reason alone?


OU Tournament

Team	2023 RPI Ranking
Liberty	25
Louisiana	9

Does RPI matter as much as it used to determine who hosts regionals? I hope it does not or else we might be talking about it a lot since the only 3 decent teams in the Big 12 are OU, OSU and Texas.

It looks like SEC conference schedule is starting the same week as Big 12 starts. Maybe in the future we will see the same type of schedule?

[Sooneryankee13]

Baylor and ucf should also be ranked or close to the top 25 and tech should be improved as well

[inconnu]

The only good reason to go to Mary Nutter every year is that there are always some top recruits in California every year, and a bunch of those kids likely want to see OU play in person.

[MontOUfan]

Interestingly, since the Sooners started going to the Mary Nutter (and the Palm Springs tournament before it was named after Mary Nutter) in 2006, they have only played UCLA seven times (06, 11, 14, 16, 17, 19, and 23). They did play them in 2022 at the Mark Campbell tournament (Jordy Bahl's coming out party). The Mary Nutter is vitally important for the Sooners in terms of competition for sure but even more so for recruiting I believe.

[OUBeliever56A]

It looks like SEC conference schedule is starting the same week as Big 12 starts. Maybe in the future we will see the same type of schedule?

I was told that the SEC schedule next year (2025) will be 8 straight weeks of SEC games starting in Weekend #6 followed by the SEC Tourney. So there will be 5 weekends of pre-conference games which gives OU one more weekend to play at home next year, in Weekend #4 and #5.

There will not be any 'pods' or divisions, just a rotating schedule of 8 games a year, 4 home, 4 on the road.

Boomer Sooner!

[AustinTXSooner]

Another reason to play the California tournament(s): Allow current player's families and friends from California see them play. I guess that you could indirectly call that recruiting.