What does Oklahoma need to make the 12-team CFP field?

If the college football season ended today, Oklahoma would be on the outside looking into the 12-team College Football Playoff field, ranked 19th in the AP Poll heading into Week 7. Luckily for the Sooners, the season doesn't end today. Even luckier (well, depending on who you ask)? OU still has four games remaining against teams currently ranked higher in those rankings. Buckle up.

There are a few ways for Oklahoma to grab a CFP berth, but they all have something in common; the Sooners have to win some big games.

Win two of three versus Texas, Ole Miss and Alabama

Easy start, right? Just beat the number one team in the country and either the current number seven or nine team in the country and Oklahoma can probably sneak in the field with two losses.

Texas is first up on this list for Oklahoma, who will take on the Longhorns in one of the most unique Red River Rivalries in years. It's not the end of the road for Oklahoma if it loses to Texas this weekend. With so many chances to leap back up the rankings still remaining, a loss to the number one team in the country isn't a death sentence. But a win this weekend would do an awful lot for the Sooners resume.

Cheer against everyone else in the SEC

While it shouldn't bank on winning its conference, Oklahoma can still win a chaotic SEC. With just one conference loss, Oklahoma is still squarely in the mix for a spot in the SEC Championship. At this point, instead of cheering for teams to help improve its strength of schedule, Oklahoma should simply cheer against all conference foes and hope things go well enough to earn a shot at the SEC title, which would bring with it an automatic bid (and first-round bye) to the CFP.

... Except Tennessee

Oklahoma has already lost to the Volunteers, so Sooner fans should (as much as it hurts after that game) root for Tennessee to keep winning and stay in the top 10, in turn making OU's single loss not look so bad. If Oklahoma's only losses are to a top-ten Tennessee and an undefeated Texas, they're in. Heck, OU can probably suffer one more loss and still make the field, as long as their wins look convincing.

Root against other potential at-large bid teams

The states of Washington and Oklahoma probably don't think about each other very much, but if OU drops a couple of games and is forced to hope for an at-large bid, then Sooners fans will start being top haters of Washington State, another team hoping to sneak into the dance. The Pac-12, for some reason, does not get an automatic bid, so Wazzu is hoping to win out and take one of the at-large bids up for grabs.

Oklahoma should also root for the Big Ten to cannibalize itself, and for unranked teams in that conference to spring major upsets on CFP contenders. The B10 could realistically get anywhere from two to five teams in the playoff. Oklahoma is rooting for the former.

OU's brutal schedule could either do it a favor — if the Sooners win a bunch of games — or be the reason it's left out of the CFP if the Sooners go cold down the stretch of their inaugural SEC campaign.