OU Daily assistant sports editor Louis Raser answers your questions and concerns after Oklahoma’s (5-5, 1-5 SEC) loss to Missouri (7-2, 3-2) on Saturday in Columbia.
Would firing Brent Venables set OU back even further for the next three years?
This is the question you have to ask yourself if you’re Joe Castiglione.
Personally, I think it would. Venables’ 5-5 record and being on the brink of missing a bowl game is unacceptable. Furthermore, you’d think the manner in which the Sooners lost against Missouri would be a huge blow to the confidence Castiglione has in Venables, and it’s certainly not the first disappointing loss OU has suffered under the third-year head coach.
He’s now 5-8 in one-score games. That includes wins against Houston, when OU was a 27.5-point favorite, UCF in 2023 (OU was a 17.5-point favorite) and BYU in 2023 (24.5-point favorite).
Has there been enough disappointment in Venables’ first three years to warrant him being fired? Probably. But he has made substantial strides with the defense, has made good hires like Zac Alley, Todd Bates and Emmett Jones, and he would be owed $44.8 million if OU parted ways with him following this season.
Also, does OU really want to follow a disastrous first season in the SEC with a few years of rebuilding?
Oklahoma made a mistake by granting Venables a contract extension this offseason after only two years at the helm of the program. I think the program’s only option is to give him one more season — ideally with a healthy receiver room and revamped offensive line — and let that be the determining factor for whether he’s the guy of the future.
The offensive coordinator hire will also be an indicator of how fit Venables is for the job. If he messes that up for the second year in a row, then it’ll be time to move on.
Jackson Arnold is the worst OU quarterback in the last 60 years
I think this is definitely an exaggeration, but it’s not looking good for Arnold.
He’s certainly been dealt a bad hand this season with his five primary receivers all being injured for most of the year, a historically bad offensive line protecting him and an offensive coordinator who performed so poorly he was fired halfway through his first season.
Still, Arnold needs to play better. You can’t expect to win many games where the two longest passes come from your punter and running back. Arnold’s 74 passing yards, in a game where he got Jalil Farooq and Deion Burks back from injury, aren’t going to cut it.
Arnold has done a fine job scrambling this season — which is a necessity when your offensive line has given up more sacks (41) than any other team in the FBS — but fumbling three times, and eight times in seven starts, is holding him and OU’s offense back.
Venables often opens his postgame press conferences with a sentiment about how “Oklahoma beat Oklahoma.” It certainly applied to the team Saturday, maybe more to Arnold than anyone else.
Sophomore quarterback Jackson Arnold during game against Missouri on Nov. 9 at Faurot Field.
Give Casey Thompson a chance
Part of me thinks this is a good idea. OU’s biggest issue all season at quarterback has been turnovers, and you’d think a seventh-year quarterback would pose better ball security than a sophomore, Arnold, and freshman, Michael Hawkins Jr.
But even if making Thompson the starter would help Oklahoma’s offense, how much would it do for the future? Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly still things left to play for, most notably bowl eligibility, but Thompson is not the quarterback of the Sooners’ future.
What’s most important at this point in the season is preparing either Arnold or Hawkins for the future, which means continuing to throw them into the fire against SEC opponents to give them experience.
Why did none of the OU staff ask the refs to review the blatant targeting?
According to Venables, the officials told him the hit on Deion Burks in the fourth quarter wasn’t targeting.
“They said it wasn’t targeting,” Venables said postgame. “So he’s under evaluation right now.”
The number of injuries this season is bizarre
Oklahoma has 12 players who didn’t play on Saturday due to injury. That doesn’t even include Burks and Farooq, who have missed most of the season.
Venables said postgame that despite being listed as a game time decision, Michael Tarquin was not close to giving it a go on Saturday. Jacob Sexton and Jake Taylor also did not play on the Sooners’ depleted offensive line.
Given the multitude of turnovers this season, how has there been no improvement in ball control and protection?
Jackson Arnold said that the beginning of most OU practices involves a 'turnover circuit' where players go through drills designed to help ball security.
Maybe turnover circuits are the only thing the Sooners should do during Monday's practice. Oklahoma has a -9 turnover margin in SEC play. Sure, some of that is due to the defense only forcing one turnover in a three-game stretch against Texas, South Carolina and Mississippi.
But the three interceptions OU has thrown and 12 lost fumbles — yes, 12 — is the main issue. If the Sooners don't lose four fumbles, they beat Missouri. I'd even venture to say that if Oklahoma cuts that number in half to only two fumbles, they still win.
What many Sooner fans would like to see in the final two games of the season is some sliver of hope. If Oklahoma can limit its turnovers against two top-tier SEC foes in Alabama and LSU, that would certainly be something to build on heading into next season.
If they can't do that, I'm not sure where OU fans can go to find hope.
It’s not the injured players that are the problem, it’s Brent’s ineptitude to field a team that can play four quarters of smart football
How good would Oklahoma’s offense be if it was fully healthy?
That’s been the overarching question for most of the 2024 season. That was the question that seemingly would give the Sooners hope going forward, and allow them to chalk 2024 up to bad luck with the injury bug. But despite Burks and Farooq returning, Oklahoma had not only its worst passing night of the season, but one of its worst of the past decade.
Lowest passing total in a game for Oklahoma's leading passer in the last 10 years:-Cody Thomas 2014 (39 yards, Samaje Perine record-breaking game)-Davis Beville 2022 (38 yards)-Jackson Arnold today (74 yards)#Sooners
— Louis Raser (@LouisRaser) November 10, 2024
It now seems that even if Oklahoma was fully healthy this season, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. Not only that, but the way Oklahoma crumbled in the final moments had nothing to do with injuries. It was simply a bad football team doing what bad teams do. And yes, that mainly falls on coaching.
If I’m a recruit, I’m leaving
Can you blame them?
