The vibes in Norman are immaculate courtesy of Brent Venables and Oklahoma’s 2025 season. 4-0 with dominance all around, with no signs of struggle? Give us more than please. John Mateer is at the top of the Heisman leaderboards with +700 odds, and with 7 more ranked matchups coming Oklahoma’s way, this season is slated to be the best, yet one of the more difficult seasons to conquer. But the good thing is, it’s not just sports Oklahoma is excelling at. OU just posted a ranking jump that outpaced the entire SEC, and it wasn’t even close.

According to the 2026 Best Colleges list, OU is now the No.1 university in Oklahoma and has climbed to No. 110 nationally. For context, that’s a 22-spot jump and is the largest leap among all SEC institutions. Moreover, OU is one of only two schools with double-digit SEC gains. The university also sits in the top 25% of all universities nationwide. It has moved up to No. 54 public university, yet again a 14-spot jump, and the only double-digit jump in SEC publics.

“At OU, our commitment to opening the doors of opportunity and empowering our students to succeed is at the forefront of everything we do, and we are thrilled to see this recognition,” President Joseph Harroz Jr. said. He framed this surge as the product of sustained campus-wide effort happening for a long time rather than just a one-year blip. He also credited the dedication and excellence of students, faculty, and staff, and talked about the rankings being the result of solving fundamental problems throughout campus.

Now, add this information to the fact that OU is in the midst of one of its most dominant seasons in recent memory. The SEC is usually seen with the eyes of a conference that makes a trade-off of education for sporting excellence, but OU, singlehandedly, is trying to break that stereotype. Now, with OU being the best university in Oklahoma, the local as well as the national talent pool will be even more attracted to the institution. And as you know, recruiting never stops.

This conclusion came from U.S. News, which evaluated roughly 1700 four-year institutions across 17 measures, from graduation and first-year retention to faculty resources, financial aid, borrower debt, etc. And within that broad competitive field, OU’s profile distanced itself from the conference peers, leaving the SEC in the dust academically. If this trajectory holds, then the university’s 2026-2027 alignment would be a rare mix of academics and brand momentum with an excellent dose of football on Saturdays.

Books, ball, and balance at OU

College sports thrive when coaches keep the main thing the main thing, but Brent Venables is not that kind of coach. He can definitely coach a good football team, but the reality of college football is that only a select few make it to the pro level. And to tackle this, Venables has pitched Oklahoma as a place for holistic growth, where the classroom is just as important as the gridiron. Because in real life, the return for most people will come from what happens on Monday to Friday rather than just on Saturdays.

An uncontested proof of that is the academic results. “We just had our 5th straight record-setting semester academically, [with] over 3.0 team GPA,” Venables had said in March this year, while drawing a contrast to the situation of academics in the football team when he took over. He said, “When we started, we were closer to a 2.0 than we were a 3.0—embarrassingly speaking. But we’ve changed the mindset and the goal [by] just having great habits.” He has been really vocal on the importance of academics, irrespective of how good a player you are. Your identity cannot hinge on football alone, because life is played at a much bigger level than a 100-yard field.

And NIL has yet added another dimension to this equation. Venables has noted that more than half the roster now makes six figures, adding that some “are making $3, 4, 500,000. They might [get] a Day 3 opportunity in the NFL at best. Then, after that, it’s 3 years max. Now what? So we have a process set up here.” That process is education. The recruiting pitch is not a simple, ‘we’ll make your son a star.’ It’s more of a ‘we’ll make your son into a person who can tackle life irrespective of whatever happens on or off the field,’ and the students embody that emotion.