Welcome to the SEC: Patty Gasso is Ready and Excited for What Lies Ahead at Oklahoma
The Sooners will have plenty of new faces in 2025, but will rely on a new crop of leaders to tackle the program’s first season in the SEC.
No program at Oklahoma is more SEC-ready than Patty Gasso’s softball juggernaut.Gasso celebrated her final month as a coach in the Big 12 with a fourth straight national title. She watched the most decorated senior class in the history of the sport ride off into the sunset with one last celebration in Oklahoma City brought on by a sweep of the Texas Longhorns in the Championship Series.
The program now has eight national championships to its name, with seven of those coming since 2013.
OU will undoubtedly undergo a major facelift this offseason. Ten seniors graduated and another three players left via the transfer portal. Gasso signed eight talented freshman, and has already filled four of five open roster spots out of the portal.
Love’s Field’s opening in 2024 was a major success, and it would be fitting that the first blockbuster recruiting win for Gasso at her new palace could be the addition of 2024 USA Softball Player of the Year NiJaree Canady, who is sought after by virtually every top team in the sport.
“I’m ready to start coaching again, because I don’t have to coach this (veteran team),” Gasso said earlier this month after winning the title. “They know it. They’ve got it. They coach each other. I’m really excited about what’s coming.”
Should the Sooners land the former Stanford star, the impressive Southeastern Conference will be stuck in a steel cage with Gasso and Oklahoma, not the other way around.
Top-to-bottom, the SEC will undoubtedly be a step up in competition from the Big 12.
Every SEC school that fields a softball team made the NCAA Tournament in 2024, truly giving each conference series a Super Regional-style feel every weekend.
And while the strength of the conference is unquestioned, that hasn’t translated to total domination at the top like it has for the SEC in baseball.
An SEC school hasn’t played in the Championship Series at the Women’s College World Series since 2017 — when the Florida Gators lost to OU.
Oklahoma and fellow SEC newcomer Texas have met twice for the national title in the last three years, and Kenny Gajewski’s Oklahoma State Cowgirls have ensured the Sooners play another massive ranked series every year since 2021.
The difficulty of the new conference will be trading matchups against Houston, Iowa State and Texas Tech for programs like Ole Miss, Kentucky and South Carolina.
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