The process of evaluating early games for top 25 programs used to be easy. Assume the larger school was going to win by a big margin, talent would be evaluated, the smaller school would get smoked and take its large payday. After that, everyone would go home and live happily ever after, at least until the conference schedule started.
Not anymore. With the college football playoff field expanded to 12 teams, those games are more important than ever. Teams like Oklahoma, which goes into the season ranked 16th, will enter their opener against Temple under a microscope as rivals and experts try to evaluate each other while vying for highly contested playoff berths.
Game Details
Fixture: Temple Owls vs. Oklahoma Sooners
Date and Time: August 30, 2024 @ 7:00 EST
Location: Memorial Stadium, Norman OK
Temple Owls Team Review
While Oklahoma is celebrating the debut of Jackson Arnold, Temple is "celebrating" a higher level of competition in its quarterback room. The candidates to start against the Sooners are Forrest Brock, Evan Simon and Tyler Douglas, but Owls coach Stan Drayton isn't naming a starter, saying that the competition has created an "iron vs. iron" mindset.
Whoever gets the nod will definitely have to have a tougher mindset than the Owls showed last year. They won just three games versus nine losses, and the only win that stood out was a victory over Navy, which has also fallen off in recent years.
Drayton is in his second season as coach, and he'll be under pressure to do better and at least get Temple closer to the .500 mark. It won't be easy given this opening opponent, although they do get another crack at Navy in their second game, which is a road tilt.
Oklahoma Sooners Team Review
The Sooners nailed the early part of their schedule last year, racing out to seven straight wins before a pair of losses to Kansas and arch rival Oklahoma State doomed them to a date with #14 Arizona, which beat them 38-24 in the Alamo Bowl.
In many programs that would have been considered a fine year, but in Norman, Oklahoma the standards are a little higher. To help the Sooners attain that standard, head coach Brent Venables chose Jackson Arnold, who joins an illustrious quarterback list that includes the likes of Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray and Jalen Hurts, among others.
Arnold may find himself short of targets in this one, but it likely won't affect the final results. Receiver Nic Anderson will be out with an undisclosed injury, and he'll join Jayden Gibson, who is already out for the season with a leg injury.
Who to Watch
Temple Owls
With all the uncertainty, we'll pick whoever starts at quarterback. Simon and Brock both struggled last year, with the former throwing more picks than touchdown passes, while Brock barely saw the field last year for the Owls, and he completed less than 50 percent of his passes in the games he did start.
Douglas is a freshman, so perhaps he'll get the nod, but Temple's offense struggled last year, and in this game they'll be trying to keep pace with a team that's being billed as an offensive juggernaut.
Oklahoma Sooners
Given all the hype, Arnold is definitely the man to watch. Even if the Sooners win this game handily, he'll have to be brilliant to meet expectations given last year's overall results for the Sooners. Oklahoma has two more soft games against Houston and Tulane after this one, but after that their schedule toughens when Tennessee comes to down, and the much-anticipated showdown with looms two weeks after that.
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