Projecting the Oklahoma Sooners' 2024 win total
Every year, I try to project the Oklahoma Sooners’ final record based on my own power ratings. Much like professional linesmakers, I create these ratings in an effort to quantify my opinion of the objective strength of teams. I can then compare the ratings between two opponents to set a point spread for a game, adjusting roughly 2.5 points in favor of the home team.
To construct a win total for the season, I do the following:
Set a line on each game to determine an implied win probability based on historical trends;
Convert those probabilities into a win share; and
Sum up the win shares from all 12 games in the regular season to arrive at a projected win total.
For example, I make OU a 4.5-point favorite versus the Tennessee Volunteers in their matchup on Sept. 21 in Norman. College football teams favored between 3.5 and seven points historically win 65% of the time. Therefore, I count that matchup as 0.65 wins toward the Sooners’ final record.
You might be wondering how I calculate the team power ratings. I don’t have a satisfying answer to this question, unfortunately. You could call them informed guesses derived from ingesting all manner of analysis since the end of the 2023 season. (And, to be clear, nobody said my ratings are good.)
With that in mind, here goes nothing…
That works out to a final record of 8.16 wins and 3.86 losses. Let’s call it 8-4.
The current consensus among professional betting shops puts the over-under on wins for the Sooners in 2024 at 7.5. Draftkings has the bet juiced slightly to the over at -115, versus -105 to play under 7.5 wins. At nearly a full win above the total, my projection suggests the over remains a good play here.
A few thoughts…
*The fan part of me finds it concerning that my numbers point so strongly to the Sooners hitting the over. I usually end up in the same vicinity as Vegas, so I rarely have an angle on betting OU’s win total.
*Notably regarding OU, the shifts in the over-under and changes in the odds across the board indicate respected gamblers are generally betting the over on the Sooners’ win total. Bear in mind that they were putting their money down at more appealing prices than what we see now.
*In terms of how I rate view this particular OU team, I wouldn’t say my power rating differs dramatically from the betting shops. I have the Sooners tied for seventh overall, but I consider the gap between them and the next nine or 10 teams to be fairly small. You could toss that group of 12-ish teams in a hat and pick the order at random – I probably wouldn’t object to how it shook out.
*Whatever your opinion of the competition in the Big 12 may be, just about any efficiency metric you can find would tell you the Sooners have played at a consistently high level for more than two decades. A new schedule in the SEC means the win-loss record going forward certainly won’t look so gaudy. Even so, betting that OU’s objective level of performance will dip dramatically by virtue of playing a lineup of more talented teams doesn’t compute.
*As for opponents, I don’t have as much faith in Ole Miss, Missouri and Texas as the pundits and quants do. Maybe I’m just being a hater about the Longhorns, but it seems like the loss of Byron Murphy and T’vondre Sweat on the interior will compromise their defense more than people seem to expect.
I’m probably too high on LSU, given the state of the Tigers defense. Opposite with Tennessee, although the Volunteers could take a big step on defense this season.
*Lastly, the amount of personnel movement across the college football landscape has made this exercise increasingly difficult every year.