Greg McElroy reacts to Oklahoma's first SEC schedule in 2024

The big 2024 SEC schedule release took place earlier this week, with every member of the league getting a peek at their first football schedule following the addition of Texas and Oklahoma. While it’s cool for all the SEC programs to get a taste of new blood in conference play come next fall, the most interesting reveals were for the Sooners and the Longhorns, who are diving head first into a full SEC slate for the first time in their program’s history.

ESPN’s Greg McElroy broke down OU’s draw after it was unveiled and he didn’t mince words when laying out how tough it is, since the Sooners have more road games than home games and play some of the conference’s top dogs in their very first year in the league. He even had a mathematical breakdown for why Oklahoma is facing a murderer’s row in conference play in year one following their move to the SEC.

“Oklahoma has just three home games against SEC competition in 2024. Those three teams that they bring to Norman went a combined 30-9. Alabama went 11-2, Tennessee went 11-2 and South Carolina went 8-5. That’s three extremely difficult games in Norman for the Sooners,” claims McElroy.

Also, notably, it’s three teams that finished with a better record than Oklahoma last year. So this Sooner squad is going to need to make massive steps of improvement in this gap year to catch up, because their road schedule isn’t any easier. “They also have five games away from home in which the record was pretty dang impressive as well,” McElroy continued, going into that math as well:

“37-28 amongst the five teams they play away from home. Of course, you have the neutral site game in Texas, 8-5. LSU went 10-4, Auburn went 5-7, but a difficult place to play on the Plains. When you go to Jordan-Hare, anything can happen, that’s for sure. Ole Miss is tricky, who went 8-5. They should be pretty good as well. And then you get Missouri in a rivalry game that you know Missouri is going to be very fired up about there. They, unfortunately though, went just 6-7. So, a difficult schedule for Oklahoma welcome to the SEC.”

That’s no cake walk and a gargantuan step up from the competition they’re used to facing in conference play. They do get a reprieve at playing eight games compared to the Big 12’s nine, but they average quality in opponent more than makes up the difference.