Projecting Oklahoma's win total for 2018
I go through an annual exercise every year in which I try to derive an expected win total for Oklahoma in the upcoming season using projected point spreads for every game. Basically, the lines offer an implied likelihood of an outright win by the Sooners in every game, which translate into win equivalents. (I've written about the process in the past.)
For example, a team that is favored by 27 points has a win likelihood of 96 percent, or .96 win equivalents.
In 2017, I projected 9.9 regular season wins for the Sooners, who ended up going 11-1. Here's how I see things playing out this season:
Notes:
*Although I currently expect OU to be favored in each game this year, I put the Sooners right on 9.5 victories. In other words, I can't say I have a strong feeling as to whether or not OU will hit double-digit Ws in the fall.
*The only over-under futures I've seen offered so far came from betonline.ag, which had OU at 10.5 wins. That's a full game more than I'm projecting, but the odds are heavily tilted to the under (-155). At that price, I wouldn't play the under. I'm definitely avoiding betting on the Sooners to win 11.
*These lines illustrate just how easily OU could fall from a contender for a conference championship to a Texas Bowl qualifier. Being favored in every game is nice and all, but I had the Sooners pegged as double-digit favorites in essentially 10 contests last year. This year, it's only eight.
*I don't feel great about where I have the line in the TCU game. That might be because I don't really know what to make of the Horned Frogs.
I'm granting Gary Patterson the benefit of the doubt for now, but let's see what he's got in new quarterback Shawn Robinson. I realize that Robinson was only a freshman in '17, but I would've been far more bullish on him heading into this season had he pushed Kenny Hill late in the year.