Why Florida & Oklahoma Are the Two Most Interesting Teams in the SEC
The Gators and the Sooners go into the 2026 college football season with different expectations but similar intrigue.
We’re just under four months away from the start of the 2026 college football season. Indeed, we say it every year, but we do so because it’s always true – it’ll be here before you know it.
With spring practice in the rearview mirror, I’m going around the country to write about a couple of different teams in each conference that are most interesting to me right now.
We’ll start in the SEC, where the Oklahoma Sooners and the Florida Gators are the two most interesting teams in the conference this season.
This time last year, much of the preseason conversation about the Gators and the Sooners revolved around three things: 1) Both had the toughest schedule in all of college football, 2) Both head coaches were on the hot seat, and 3) Both had the potential to make the College Football Playoff. The Sooners made the CFP, while the Gators crashed and burned, fired their head football coach, Billy Napier, and lost former five-star recruit quarterback DJ Lagway to the transfer portal.
Enter Jon Sumrall, the new head football coach at Florida. Like Brent Venables at Oklahoma, he, too, made the CFP last season with his Tulane squad that won the AAC and 11 games overall. Across his four seasons as a head coach at Troy and Tulane, he’s 43-12. He’s never lost more than one conference game in any of those four seasons. Interestingly enough, Napier also arrived in Gainesville with four years of head coaching experience and a nearly identical record at 40-12. Will things be different for Sumrall in Gator Country?
His coordinator hires were a good start, on both sides of the ball. With Kentucky moving on from Mike Stoops, longtime defensive coordinator Brad White, with whom Sumrall was co-DC in 2021 in Lexington, became available. Together, White and Sumrall coached a Kentucky defense that finished 26th in all of FBS in scoring defense and 4th in the SEC. The Gators have finished inside the top-10 in the SEC in scoring defense once since the start of the 2021 season, and it was 10th in 2022. On offense, stealing Buster Faulkner away from The Flats could prove to be one of the best coordinator hires of the offseason in all of college football. Former Georgia Tech quarterback Haynes King flourished under the former Parkview star quarterback’s tutelage. If Georgia Tech transfer quarterback Aaron Philo can come close to replicating what King did, just on the ground, where the Jackets were 8th in FBS in yards per carry, the combination of the former Prince Avenue Christian star and Jadan Baugh could be devastating for opposing defenses.
For Oklahoma, the Sooners made the CFP last season. They beat Josh Heupel and Tennessee inside Neyland Stadium. They beat Alabama again, this time on the road in the regular season. (Although they did lose to the Crimson Tide in their CFP rematch in Norman a month later.) Brent Venables led a defense that ranked first in the SEC and fifth nationally in DFEI, per BCFToys. The problem, though, was that while the Sooners’ defense was championship-esque, the offense was nowhere close. Oklahoma was 117th in rushing yards per game last year. They were 84th in points scored per offensive drive, per BCFToys. In November, the Sooners were 91st in passing yards per game. The stark contrast between Venables’ defense and first-year Oklahoma offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle’s offense was plainly evident week in and week out. And yet, they still won double-digit games and hosted a CFP game.
All eyes will be on John Mateer because all eyes are always on the quarterback. We all get it, but part of the reason Mateer and that Sooners’ offense a year ago was hamstrung in the passing game was injuries, yes, which has been the case the last two years in Norman, but also Deion Burks going scoreless between Game 3 and Game 11. Mateer’s favorite target, Isaiah Sategna, is back and pushed for 1,000 yards receiving last year. Around him, the Sooners added Trell Harris from Virginia and Parker Livingstone from Texas. The latter was extremely productive and available in Austin a season ago. The former had two games in which he went over 140 yards receiving and was a chunk-play assassin for a Virginia team that won double-digit games and reached the ACC championship. Surrounding Sategna with Harris and Livingstone may not be the flashiest wide receiver trio in the SEC. Still, it could be one of the safest in the production department, which is ultimately all that matters anyway.
Whether it’s Philo or Tramell Jones Jr. under center at Florida, they’ll have talent out wide to work with, too. Similar to Oklahoma, there is just a whole lot to like in the top three with Eric Singleton Jr., Dallas Wilson, and Vernell Brown III. Singleton Jr. has two years of proven production in Faulkner’s system, dating back to his days at Georgia Tech. Brown III flashed as a YAC machine last year, too. Wilson has the highest upside of the group as a former five-star wideout. In his four games played last year, Wilson reeled in three touchdowns. He nabbed two and accumulated 111 yards and six receptions in the Gators’ win over Texas. He’s got to stay healthy, but like Oklahoma, the wideout trio in Gainesville has a lot to like.
What also works in both schools’ favor, outside of a more manageable schedule than a year ago, is that both are flying under the radar a bit in the SEC. For Oklahoma, its arch-rival Texas, is all-in once again, and all eyes are on Steve Sarkisian’s team in Austin. That’s where you want to be if you’re Venables and the Sooners in Mid-May. For Florida, LSU is the school with the new head coach and sky-high expectations.
The Gators had those expectations coming into last year. Sumrall is in a great spot to overachieve and flash a bright future in Gainesville, particularly with Philo and Baugh on the ground and a much-improved defense. Sumrall starting off his Florida tenure with its 2026 football schedule rather than its 2025 football schedule could also prove to be one of the more important first-year developments in the SEC. The path to eight or nine wins is there for the Gators.
The path to nine or ten wins is there for the Sooners, if they can survive a brutal September. They get Texas coming out of a bye week, and the Sooners have the kind of schedule where it could go on a run from Mid-October onward.
It might not all happen for the Gators and the Sooners this season, but it could, and it makes them two of the most interesting teams in the SEC.