DALLAS — Oklahoma knew it was a heavy underdog entering its annual rivalry game with No. 1 Texas. The Sooners knew they’d need to force some turnovers, as they did a year ago en route to a 34-30 upset of the Longhorns. So when Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers’ first pass was intercepted, the Sooners had exactly what they needed.
Then, facing fourth-and-4 at the Texas 27-yard line, Oklahoma coach Brent Venables tried to play it safe, sending the field goal unit out. Tyler Keltner’s 44-yard field goal attempt missed.
It’s Year 3, and Venables still doesn’t appear to have an understanding of his Oklahoma program or the situation the Sooners find themselves in. One early fourth-down decision wouldn’t have flipped what became a 34-3 loss, but field goals were never going to beat Texas.
It’s unacceptable for a program like Oklahoma to be in this position at this point in a coach’s tenure, with zero answers on offense, a leaky offensive line and a messy quarterback situation of their own making.
For the second time in three years, Venables’ Oklahoma team was blown out by the Longhorns and failed to score a touchdown. That never happened under Lincoln Riley. It never happened under Bob Stoops. It happened once to John Blake, and he was fired at the end of that season. From 1965 to 2021, Oklahoma scored three or fewer points against its Red River rivals just once. It has now happened twice under Venables.
A gutted roster amid a coaching change and an injury to quarterback Dillon Gabriel were convenient excuses for Oklahoma’s 49-0 loss in 2022. Those excuses can’t be applied to the OU offense’s meager 3.4 yards per play on Saturday. Even with the Sooners’ top five receivers out to injury, their quarterback situation is the most noticeable problem. Oklahoma put everything in the Jackson Arnold basket, preparing to hand the reins to the highly touted former five-star recruit for his second college season to the point that it wasn’t tenable for Gabriel to stay after he opted not to go to the NFL.
Gabriel is now at Oregon leading a top-five team, while Arnold was benched in Week 4’s 25-15 loss to Tennessee due to turnover problems and hasn’t seen the field since. His replacement, Michael Hawkins Jr., has shown some flashes, but the true freshman is just not ready for this moment. That was evident when he threw the ball away on fourth down in the fourth quarter. He finished 19 of 30 passing for just 148 yards and a lost fumble. He rushed for 27 yards … on 20 attempts, most of them scrambles.
Asked after the game if he considered a quarterback change, Venables only replied, “No.”
Oklahoma already pulled the rug out from under one hyped young quarterback. Venables doesn’t want to do it to another. Who knows what Arnold’s future in Norman looks like. Because he has only played in four games, he can redshirt and keep this year of eligibility if he doesn’t play again this season.
The Sooners won this game a year ago in a last-second upset, and it appeared Venables and Oklahoma had survived their bumpy 6-7 debut season to return near the top of college football. But the Sooners finished with three losses, and not a single offensive starter on the field for last year’s Red River win was available today. Receiver Nic Anderson, who caught the winning touchdown pass, has been out all season save for one series against Tennessee.
The burnt orange team across the field, meanwhile, has handled plenty of quarterback injuries in recent years, turning to Maalik Murphy or Arch Manning with Ewers temporarily sidelined and continuing to find success. The Longhorns have two quarterbacks they feel good about. Oklahoma doesn’t have one. Meanwhile, former Sooners Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts, Spencer Rattler and Caleb Williams will all start NFL games on Sunday. It’s been an unbelievable drop-off.
When Texas and Oklahoma announced their move to the SEC in 2021, the conventional thinking was that the Sooners would continue to be a dominant program, while the inconsistent Longhorns could struggle with tougher competition. The standing of the two has completely flipped.
Now, it’s Oklahoma that has a quarterback mess and a lack of answers. It’s Texas that has the dominant offensive line, after Oklahoma held that edge for the better part of a decade. It’s Texas coming off a College Football Playoff appearance and sitting atop the standings as the only undefeated team left in the SEC. The Sooners are 4-2, fortunate that an Auburn collapse helped them avoid a 3-3 start. A bowl game is no sure thing. Only Maine is an obvious win in their brutal second-half schedule.
To his credit, Venables has fixed the defensive problems that doomed the Lincoln Riley era. Oklahoma signed a top-10 recruiting class last year and is nearing that again for 2025. He’s doing many of the things he was hired to do. He has an SEC-caliber defense.
But he’s not winning at the Oklahoma standard. And now he has been embarrassed twice by Texas. You can’t win many games 17-14 in today’s version of the sport, especially not this rivalry game. The Sooners defense simply wore down on Saturday, and there was no offense to help.
An offensive coordinator change feels possible after this season, if only for to help the optics. Venables followed the Dabo Swinney strategy of promoting Joe Jon Finley and Seth Littrell from within after Jeff Lebby left for Mississippi State and has found similar results to Swinney. But watching the Sooners, it’s hard to say play calling is the problem. They just don’t have the horses, and they should by Year 3. Arnold was supposed to carry Oklahoma into the future. The Sooners bailed on that at the first sign of trouble and haven’t had much else.
Oklahoma is college football’s winningest program since World War II. Save for a rough stretch in the late 1990s, Sooners fans have known nothing but domination.
Their biggest concern right now is that seasons scraping to bowl eligibility and blowout losses to Texas could start to become a new normal if this program doesn’t find an identity quickly.
(Photo: Alex Slitz / Getty Images)
