Debates about which teams deserve to play for the national championship are nothing new. It’s become part of the head coach’s responsibility to plead his team’s case for getting that chance.

After Oklahoma’s 39-27 win for the Big 12 championship, Sooners coach Lincoln Riley’s press conference included multiple questions about OU’s case for making the final four.

“Based on we’ve beat everybody on our schedule,” Riley said after the game. “You’ve got to win by one point in these games last time I checked. I feel like we can score points on people and I feel like we can stop people and kind of like in the previous question a few minutes ago, I feel like we’re gaining traction defensively are. I feel like we have our highest performances in the last couple of weeks in huge games against dynamic offenses, and I don’t think we’ve played our best yet this year and I think we’re going to get there.

“I absolutely feel like it. I know how close we were to it last year, to being right there in the last one, and I have every bit as much confidence in this team, this offense, this defense and special teams as I did sitting on this stage last year at this time. I know we can. I have zero doubt.”

In his final statement before leaving Dallas, Riley drove the point home that 12-1 Oklahoma has put together a resume that should impress the College Football Playoff selection committee.

“My opinion doesn’t matter and I’m not on the committee,” Riley said in his final press conference answer. “We’ve given it everything we have. We have left everything that we’ve got out there this season. We got a great resume.

“Again, kind of like the Heisman question, I get there are other great teams out there, but I feel very confident that this team can go forward and continue to win and I think our best ball is ahead of us. Being able to do what this team has done is really remarkable. It really is. We’ve got some great players behind us. I think a lot of people don’t want to play. We’ll let the committee do their job. They’ve got a lot of good things to look at from this team today, I’m sure they were tuned in and watching this and if they did they saw one of the best teams in the country.”

Riley and the rest of the country will find out soon whether Oklahoma is one of the final four.