Nothing takes place in a vacuum, least of all, among others, Oklahoma football.

And because it’s fun, let’s name some of the others:

North Carolina, Kansas and Kentucky basketball; Nebraska, Alabama, Notre Dame and Southern Cal football; maybe Iowa and Oklahoma State wrestling and LSU baseball, too.

See? Fun.

Anyway, it doesn’t.

When it comes to Sooner football, every question asked and every answer given is specific not only to the season at hand but to the history of the program, because expectations are not limited to returning starters and last season’s fortunes but include the whole shootin’ match, which is to say it can go back a century.

Or more.

What’s that have to do with anything?

Well, I began with the idea the current roller coaster OU finds itself upon is not just about wins and losses but so much more, even if the last two men to get the memo are the ones both receiving and signing the checks, university president Joe Harroz and athletic director Roger Denny.

Then I went about figuring out how to explain it, and here we are.

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Two touchdowns, six field goal attempts.

A whopping 467 yards of total offense, yet only 23 points on the scoreboard.
Why, oh, why, is the red zone Oklahoma’s kryptonite?

And yet …

And yet, for five consecutive games since rolling UTEP opening night, these were complaints not even available to be made.

Treat it how you like.

Call it an indictment for all the Sooners failed to do prior to Saturday’s 23-15 victory at Mississippi State.

Call it proof OU can go win every remaining game on its schedule — and truth be told, but for Ole Miss at home Nov. 14, it’s not an impossible slate — maybe sneak into the SEC title game and should that happen, well, even with three losses, the Sooners are back in the playoff conversation.

Whatever you call it, even if begrudging — the island I find myself upon — you must call it progress, no matter how much you wish not to.

You even kind of have to like how it happened.

In our previous entry we asked head coach Brent Venables and staff only to be competent, only to not screw it up, only to stay out of the way, and for a whole first half, that’s mostly just what they did.

True, until John Mateer and Isaiah Sategna combined to make a great play together — Mateer by keeping the play alive long enough to find Sategna on the left sideline and Sategna by instinctively knowing where to plant his left foot upon coming down with the ball, sending him sprinting into the middle of the field and the end zone — OU’s conservative-as-all-get-out offensive strategy made for horrifically boring football.

But for that play, arriving 39 seconds before intermission, the Sooners gained all of 125 first-half yards and scored just three first-half points.

Yet, somehow, asking next to nothing from their quarterback until he improvised seven points with Sategna’s help, it set Mateer up for great success afterward, even if it yielded only 13 more points.

Or, sure, 22 more points had kicker Tate Sandell not come down with vertigo in the middle of the second half and miss three field-goal attempts.

But he missed them and missing them counts, as do six drives that could have been touchdowns that weren’t, stalling at the Bulldogs’ 24-, 27-, 12-, 27-, 23- and 20-yard lines.

But who’s complaining?

On the ground, of course, OU still can’t pick a No. 1, handing the ball to Tori Blaylock 13 times and Lloyd Avant 12, but maybe — MAYBE — they’ve finally settled on a two-back rotation, given Jonathan Hatton carried only twice and Xavier Robinson, on the injured list the week before the game, was not to be found.

Good for Blaylock, who netted 71 yards, 47 of it on a single snap, and Avant, who carried for 55, the Sooners gained 184 on the ground to go with 283 in the air — 164 of it caught by Sategna — marking a blowout in all ways but the final score.

Much of that, though impossible to quantify just so, had to do with left tackle Michael Fasusi’s triumphant return from injury after 23 quarters away, anchoring an offensive line that wasn’t tremendous, but that appeared settled and you could feel it watching it.

Mateer, completing 22 of 29 passes without an interception or anything close to one, seemed to feel it. He also shed his familiar anxiety after playing two whole quarters without messing up, which surely had to do with being asked for so little out of the gate. And having not messed up, he was set up for his end-of-the-half improvisation and a second half that came with 306 yards from scrimmage.

Just how little was Mateer asked to do early?

So little, he threw one pass the Sooners’ first 11 snaps.

On his way into halftime, his squad having caused and recovered a fumble, forced by Owen Heinecke and recovered by Taylor Wein, and then gone on a 16-play, 96-yard march ending in Sategna’s score, Venables told SEC Network sideline reporter Tori Petry, “That’s as good as it gets when it comes to complementary football.”

Watching, my head dipped.

Can he please retire the term, because who wants a 16-play, 96-yard drive?

Why not do it in 10 plays, creating lesser risk?

Among his postgame comments, Venables said, “That probably should have been a four- or five-score win.”

That’s more like it.

He should know “complementary football” does not yield runaways like that, so shelve the term, the thought, the goal and maybe next time 467 yards will add up not to 23 points, but 42, what OU would have scored had each of its entries inside the Mississippi State 25 been a touchdown.

Goodness, they can still be so much better than this.
Goodness, they must still be so much better than this.

But the defense was terrific, the offense gained yards and didn’t turn it over, the offensive line wasn’t a shambles, their quarterback exited with confidence, they didn’t try any silly trick plays and, though wildly inefficient, they were not without a clue.

Competence, yes.
Also, a win.

Baby steps.
Baby steps are good.

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We’re back to competence.

Not heading into the game, because that ship’s sailed and how could it not considering the 12 names the Sooners put on Thursday night’s injury report, two were offensive linemen Michael Fasusi and Heath Ozaeta, listed questionable, though neither played last week, and two others were Ryan Fodje and Eddy Pierre-Louis, listed out.

Pierre-Louis you may remember from SEC media days, earning the trip on his apparent leadership skills, before first playing poorly and second not playing at all, and Fodje you may remember from last week, when he continued to play into the fourth quarter despite having only one leg to stand on, a reality lost on line coach Bill Bedenbaugh, offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle and head coach Brent Venables all at the same time.

Fasusi, of course, hasn’t played since the first quarter of the UTEP opener and Ozaeta managed to get himself hurt in a walk-through prior to the Texas game, only to then play all four quarters, before sitting out to the same injury last week.

Do you think it’s possible Venables practices good on good at full speed — ergo, recklessly — in the name of keeping his defensive front seven sharp even as it lays waste to his never-had-any-real-depth-in-the-first-place offensive line?

It’s a thought, one we may never get a detailed answer to, just as we failed to get a detailed answer to how Fodje remained in the game last week.

But I digress.

Just competence, from the opening kick to the clock striking zero.

It means saving trick plays unless they’re all you’ve got and you’ve got to make something happen, rather than wanting something to happen when Tate Sandell’s an automatic three points … and not running a double reverse flea-flicker when you were moving the ball just fine already.

So, yeah, start there.

It might help because the defense run by the head coach tends to keep the Sooners in all games and this one’s likely to be no different, even if all-world Mississippi State quarterback Kamario Taylor (turf toe) is able to play, despite being listed questionable as of Thursday night; even if top running back Fluff Bothwell (left foot), 5.4 yards per carry, is able to play, despite also being listed questionable.

Know what else would be competent?

If John Mateer commits an early turnover, replace him with junior Whitt Newbauer or freshman Bowe Bentley, you choose, whoever’s more likely to get the job done and send him out for a couple series and see what happens. Because you can always bring Mateer back and, as he proved again against Kentucky, one turnover frequently leads to two or three, meaning giving him a short rest might wind up winning you the game by not losing it.

It might mean Arbuckle eating part of his press conference transcript from Tuesday, when asked why the coaching staff remains confident in Mateer …

Yeah, I mean, just throughout everything he’s done, the player that he is, the preparation that he has — pause — we believe that John Mateer gives us the best chance to win.

… except what Arbuckle said makes no sense because “everything he’s done” would lead most quarterbacks to lose their jobs and “the player that he is” can typically be defined by “everything he’s done,” which, if you missed the first part of this sentence, would lead most quarterbacks to lose their jobs.

Talk about a not ready answer.

There’s more to the Sooner injury report.

On Wednesday, running backs Tory Blaylock and Xavier Robinson were both listed questionable. On Thursday, Blaylock was upgraded to probable and Robinson was downgraded to doubtful.

Raise your hand if you’d like neither to be available, if only because it would limit Oklahoma to its two best running backs, Lloyd Avant and Jonathan Hatton, perhaps not in that order, yet if the Texas game is any judge quite likely in that order.

For three seasons, not only has the coaching staff been unwilling to identify a bell cow among its running backs, but to even settle on two running backs whose trading carries might offer the best chance to win.

So why not hope the choice is taken out of the coaches’ hands, leaving OU limited to two running backs, Avant and Hatton, who might run so well in Starkville the coaches can’t help but practice competence, even if everybody’s healthy, the following Saturday against South Carolina.

What else?

How about getting Manny Choice back on the field after hardly giving him a chance prior to his catching five balls for 98 yards against Kentucky. And maybe let Rocky Beers own the middle of the field, because did you know only three previous Sooner tight ends caught at least 60 passes — Jermaine Gresham (66), Mark Andrews (62), Trent Smith (61) — and if Beers (26), who seems to catch everything, is to get there, feed him even more now.

Maybe that’s it.

No dumb play calls, especially if they’re trick plays.

Sit your QB before he goes on another turnover bender.

Run your best runners like you mean to, even if they’re the only ones available.

Play your best receivers, too.

Take advantage of the tight end who catches everything.

Oh, yeah, don’t play anybody else at any position who’s utterly out on their feet, or who’s bound to be ruled out next week for an injury already suffered, because it makes you look dumb, out of touch, unemployable anywhere but Norman.

It shouldn’t be so hard.

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We’ve been saying forever something unseen must be at hand.

Something unseen being … well, the truth is, we don’t really know.

For instance, we don’t know if offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh, 54, on staff for 14 seasons, has any respect for offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle, 31, and because their relationship is strained, communication’s broken down, the two don’t talk and no trust exists, that’s why not only was the offensive line broken in 2024, but last season and this one, too.

Just as we have no idea if Arbuckle and wide receiver coach Emmett Jones, 51, have a strong working relationship and if they don’t perhaps that’s why Jones wouldn’t budge when Arbuckle demanded Manny Choice be put on the field more often, you know, if any of that happened at all.

Nope, we know nothing of the sort.

All we know is Oklahoma looks, plays and talks about itself as though great dysfunction is at hand, and if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, well, you know.

Perhaps those scenarios sound far-fetched, but are they?

Choice owned spring drills, made more plays than everybody else, but didn’t catch his first pass until the fourth quarter at Georgia. Then, given full opportunity against Kentucky, he caught five balls for 98 yards.

As for Bedenbaugh and Arbuckle, is there a better explanation for Ryan Fodje’s remaining on the field for multiple series against the Wildcats when he couldn’t walk — COULDN’T EVEN STAND ON TWO FEET IN THE HUDDLE WITHOUT TEAMMATES’ HELP — on his right ankle and leg?

Given a functional football team and staff, Fodje would not have returned at all, and if allowed to because he wanted to, it would have lasted only one or two snaps rather than wasting multiple series trailing 14-13 in the fourth quarter. And if the assistants can’t get it right, that’s when the head coach steps in and demands somebody else fill the void, even if it’s a tight end or a defensive lineman who played both ways in high school.

In fact, just as the Eagles should be investigated for their guidance given Jalen Hurts in and on the way home from London, how a peg-legged Fodje returned as long as he returned against Kentucky should be looked into, too, because it was coaching malpractice of the highest order.

But these are the kinds of things that happen at OU now, where head coach Brent Venables has built an amazing defense (that he coordinates himself) that’s being wasted by a horrendous offense now and the previous two seasons, too.

Despite his program’s constant shortcomings, Venables still gets credit for culture, relationships and all the other intangibles. But if he still gets that, it’s long past time to agree he’s failed in all the other aspects, almost all of them coming down to awareness and judgment.

Let us count the ways.

The offensive line, even more than quarterback John Mateer’s turnover-prone ways, is yet again the squad’s biggest disappointment, as it was last season and the year before that. Forever, Bedenbaugh’s been its coach.

On Oct. 6, Venables admitted the unit’s been harpooned by poor leadership: too many leaving, not enough quality coming back; lack of development all the way around; poor decision-making.

Yet Bedenbaugh remains.

At the end of the season, one of three things may happen.

One, the entire offensive staff will be jettisoned and the entire unit will start over and we’ll be told the new coordinator will finally have the autonomy to make his own decisions, hiring decisions included; two, Arbuckle will remain and everybody else will go and we’ll be told Arbuckle finally has the autonomy he’s never had; three, there will be changes but none so clean as options one and two and Sooner Nation will be outraged but it won’t matter because Venables’ buyout can’t be afforded for another year, two or three.

But even should he choose door No. 1 or 2, why would anybody believe he’d get it right given his track record of coordinator hires (on both sides of the ball) and even if he got the hires right, why would anybody believe he wouldn’t screw it up given his history with offense and, frankly, given what happened to Fodje, when some combination of Bedenbaugh, Arbuckle and Venables failed to protect their player and give their team the best chance to win all at the same time.

Way back in 2009, not only was tight end Jermaine Gresham lost in the preseason and Heisman winner Sam Bradford knocked out in the opener, but the line was in shambles, too. To shore things up, fullback Brody Eldridge moved to the line, as did tight end Eric Mensik, while Brian Lepak, a walk-on, joined the rotation.

Because Bob Stoops’ Sooners had imagination, things turned out well enough.
Right now, under Venables? No imagination, no well enough.

It was also his decision to go with Jackson Arnold rather than make keeping Dillon Gabriel a priority.

Still, the powers that be awarded him a fat new contract with an equally fat new buyout — THAT WASN’T FINALLY SIGNED, GET THIS, UNTIL A WEEK AGO — even when he had and has no place else to go.

What Venables either doesn’t understand, or just does a lousy job with, is the man responsible, ultimately, for the offensive line, is not the line coach, but himself. What he also doesn’t understand, or just does a lousy job with, is communication between coaches, even offensive coaches, is ultimately about him and not them.

What he also doesn’t understand, or just does a lousy job with, is play calls like the fake field goal dialed up against Kentucky can’t happen when the offense direly needs the validation points produce; or that a double-reverse flea-flicker taking two hours to develop is a horrible idea, too.

What he also doesn’t understand, or just does a lousy job with, is the Sooners’ carousel of running backs, none given the chance to be a No. 1 at the spot, even after Lloyd Avant turned 10 carries into 72 yards against Texas, is not on the offensive coaches, who’ve been allowed or encouraged to keep the carousel going, but on him.

It goes on and on.

Though we may not know what’s going on behind closed doors, the dysfunction we’ve long presumed finally spilled onto the field with every fourth-quarter snap Fodje took against the Wildcats. And with it, it’s easy to look backward and realize the terrible judgment and lack of awareness are not bugs but features of Venables’ reign.

And those who could end that reign are invested in its failure instead.

It’s not good.
It’s not changing.

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At the half, coming off the field, his team up three points and headed to the locker room, an SEC Network reporter caught up to Brent Venables.

Among other things, the Sooner head coach said, it’s going to be a fourth-quarter game.

But why?

Oklahoma would go on to lose 21-13 but it was 10-7 Sooners at the time, their having gone on first-half drives of 49, 47 and 90 yards.

The first became a 44-yard Tate Sandell field goal. The second would have been a touchdown had holder Jacob Ulrich only been able to hit a wide open Rocky Beers, yet for no good reason beyond the excitement of pulling off a trick play jump-threw right to Kentucky’s Jordan Castell instead. The third accounted for seven points, a 20-yard toss from John Mateer to Beers.

OU led 10-7, it should have been 17-7 and the Wildcats had accounted for only 52 yards, three first downs and no points since their game-opening drive concluded.

So why did OU’s head coach think, sure, it’s going to be a fourth-quarter game?

Does he want every game to be a fourth-quarter game?

Can he not envision ever winning by two, three or four touchdowns?

The game over, meeting the media, Venables offered more.

“We had plenty of opportunity there late into the third quarter to knock them out,” he said. “We just weren’t able to get it done.”

Except that’s wildly inaccurate, because at no point was OU in position to make it more than a two-score game with less than a quarter to play.

Do they now allow happy-hour 14-point touchdowns if scored in the third quarter on your home field between 9 and 10 p.m.?

Or are defensive-minded head coaches, who can’t make themselves care about offense anywhere near the level they care about defense, simply prone to believing nine- or 13-point third-quarter leads to be insurmountable, because they can’t imagine an offense, any offense, including their own, capable of putting real points on the board?

Venables spoke more.

“I do think having the right perspective is important, to see where we did make some improvement,” he said. “We had three drives in the first half that were well over 10 plays.”

Yeah, the Sooners did, accounting for the yardages and results mentioned.

But only OU’s offense could put together a drive lasting so long that so rarely fails to net seven points and frequently yields none. Only OU could rack up 346 yards of total offense, 116 more than its opponent, and turn it into so little.

Of course, to this team, led by this head coach, it’s almost expected. Because to him, that’s what college football’s about.

It’s not one bit about what OU football used to be, populated by terrific offensive lines, running backs, receivers and quarterbacks capable of scoring 40, 50 and 60 points.

Because once the Sooner offense was all about racking up those numbers, yet this one can’t net 20; not against Michigan, New Mexico, Georgia, Texas and not against Kentucky.

“I have a great appreciation for the fight,” Venables said, speaking of his offensive line. “Thought we threw from, for the most part, good clean pockets. We did have some success running the ball at times. I thought they did some really good things.”

He doesn’t do it often, only sometimes, referring to his offense, or units of his offense, as “they” and not “we.” Still, we’re waiting for the first time he mistakes his defense for “they.”

The game was about a lot of other things, too.

The “knockout” never came because, facing first-and-10 at the Kentucky 38, Mateer’s right arm was clipped from behind by Wildcat Mi’Quise Humphrey-Grace, sending the ball high into the air and short of any intended Sooner receiver, leaving Ty Bryant to pick it off and bring it back 43 yards to the OU 44.

Who knew how fragile the Sooners remained following their Cotton Bowl miracle, but here it came.

Kentucky needed seven plays to reach the end zone, quarterback Kenny Minchey finding Willie Rodriguez from 22 yards, putting the Wildcats on top 14-13.

Next, OU went three and out, Mateer getting sacked twice.

Kentucky then drove it 48 yards to the Sooner 5, before Wildcat head coach Will Stein horrendously went for it on fourth-and-goal only for Minchey to be sacked, meaning all the Sooners needed was to set Sandell up from 60 yards or less to win the game.

On three incompletions, OU went three and out again.

Still, the Sooners got the ball back with 2:43 remaining, setting up at their own 4, and showing no urgency at all, reached their own 32 with 1:25 remaining, calling time out to stop the clock.

On the next snap, Mateer threw well behind Manny Choice, Castell nabbed his second pick and brought it back 41 yards to paydirt.

The Sooners died after Mateer’s first pick. The second made it official.

The game finished as though he’d never thrown for 229 yards through three quarters, completing 19 of 29 attempts.

It finished as though the Sooner offense had been utterly inept the whole way, only able to rack up a TD and two field goals.

It finished as though it was just more of the same, just like it had been against the Lobos, Wolverines, Bulldogs and Longhorns.

But it wasn’t.

The Sooner offense played better than it had against anybody, save UTEP.

It did everything but score the points.

Maybe if it had a coach who valued offense it would be different.

Too bad, as we’ve come to know, it will take north of $50 million to find out.

This is Sooner football.

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It’s about the offense, of course it’s about the offense, it’s always about the offense for this team.

If it can play well, or if it can graduate into becoming, oh, let’s just call it a “good” offense, there’s no reason to believe Oklahoma can’t win Saturday and thereafter finish 10-2 in the regular season and return to the College Football Playoff.

That doesn’t mean it would happen, for running the SEC table remains very difficult for any team, Georgia and Alabama included.

But it could happen, and it’s on the table, should that graduation occur.

So, quick, what’s the best thing we can say about the Sooner offense right now?

Perhaps that it’s gone a whole game without committing a turnover, which is something, even if quarterback John Mateer fumbled in the first quarter against Texas and it was a miracle Ryan Fodje got it back?

Perhaps that OU gained 169 yards of total offense in the second half last Saturday, a big number against the Texas defense, made better by accumulating 82 of them on the ground following a single yard before the half?

Those are good ones, but I’m here to offer another.

Though we can’t know if the Sooner offense has been transformed, I think it’s pretty clear offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle has.

Like, here he was on Tuesday upon being asked what he envisions when he envisions the offense at its best:

When this offense is at its best, I envision us doing whatever it takes to win the football game. If we have to go out there and score every single drive, let’s do that. That’s the goal, every drive, is to score. But if it’s also play complementary, take care of the ball, make timely plays and that’s what it takes to win, then that’s what it takes.

Even mentioning scoring every drive feels like a cool breeze of possibility for an offense that’s routinely been asked to do very little.

Also, you had to love Arbuckle’s subtle outing of “complementary football” as a term that really means putting your offense on the shelf. Do you see that, Brent Venables? No need to ever invoke it again.

That’s one.

Here’s another, when Arbuckle was asked about freshman offensive lineman Noah Best getting better and better:

He’s tough, he’s physical, he’s violent … and he strains to the finish, he hypes up his teammates.

Nobody probably really saw it but my favorite play of the game was just a simple pass protection that he had. He blocked his guy, [Mateer] hit a check down to Lloyd [Avant], Lloyd broke a tackle, spun out of it, turned a 3-yard gain into 8 yards and Noah just jogged over there and just hyped him up, kind of gave him a quick shove.

You want to talk about being an awesome teammate and building confidence, well Noah Best built even more confidence in Lloyd Avant right there.

Arbuckle may not know, but if you watched the game on television and didn’t turn away from the screen, you actually did see Best, a freshman, give Avant, a junior, a hype shove.

Also, if you didn’t notice, it has to be the first time in recent memory, at least, Arbuckle took a question asking only for garden-variety positivity, his heretofore specialty, and turned it into a shiny nugget of real stuff, ready for a feature story about Best, the offensive line, Avant or just how different OU appeared against Texas than it had before Texas.

What Arbuckle’s mostly done previously is tell us how great a guy somebody is, how hard that guy’s trying, how he believes that guy has a chance to be very good, how he’s doing good things, how he’s a good teammate, but hardly, hardly, hardly, ever, ever, ever give us anything about results, about how one thing happened, making another thing happen, adding value in real time, on the field, where it matters.

He has dealt in fluff.
He’s now leapt into reality.
He has something to say.

The old Arbuckle, let’s hope he’s gone for good, I’ve chalked up to being afraid of being made wrong by his players and, maybe it’s the same thing, his own lack of confidence in them. But he saw something different last Saturday and it’s made him a different coach this week, and if he’s transformed, maybe it means his offense has for real turned the corner, too.

Then came his explanation for the offensive line finally moving people around, leading to those 82 second-half ground yards.

I think they were tired of not running the ball well. I think they were tired of hearing it. I think I said it last week in here, and I preached it to the offense too, if you’re tired of hearing something, then change it, do something about it.

It was a rivalry game, it was all that, but those guys played physical. They had a mindset about them that has to carry over. It has to carry over into the game. It has to carry over into practice, and you have to build on it.

A couple of things.

Is he taking a shot at offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh, who apparently couldn’t get his charges to play the way they’re capable of playing, leaving us to wait until they really were sick and tired of being sick and tired?

Or do you think, as I do, he wasn’t, but let it ride anyway, unafraid of the consequences because the new Ben Arbuckle is beyond wasting his energy worrying about how his words will play both within and beyond the program.

I’ve got to tell you, looking at what Kentucky has done this season, running and throwing the ball, breaking the 300-yard barrier of total offense in all six of its games and 400 in three, while OU has averaged 280.5 in its four games since dispatching Texas-El Paso, it’s hard not to pick the Wildcats.

Did you know their quarterback, Kenny Minchey, has thrown 11 touchdown passes and only one interception, while Mateer has … well, you know?

So go figure, believe what you want to believe, extrapolate what you want to extrapolate. But should you be looking for something that’s really changed, right before our eyes, that might have legs?

Take a look at Arbuckle, who’s broken his chains.

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Since deciding to add political science as my second major in the fall of ’88, The Cook Political Report’s been on my radar.

Already it had become a sort of political bible, consumed voraciously by political pros and, I presume, political science professors who could expense it rather than pay for it themselves.

It’s the brainchild of Charlie Cook, created in his 30s and still going strong into his 70s, and for an annual $350 you can consume it, too. And if you really like Charlie’s work, you can read his weekly column in The National Journal, a D.C. inside-dope endeavor, charging a mere $475 a year.

Anyway, the Cook Report’s senate and governors editor, Jessica Taylor, as reported by The Hill, yet another D.C. news source, some of whose content is free, just made changes to its analysis of four gubernatorial races, each in favor of the Democrat, one of whom is, wait for it, Cyndi Munson.

Yes, it took a while to get to the news, but isn’t it good to know the weight of the prognosticator?

Too bad the Cook Report’s not saying Munson’s likely to defeat Mazzei, only that a race once “solid Republican” has moved to “likely Republican.”

Also, The Hill, via Taylor, reports, “the Republican Governors Association recently purchased more than $2 million in ads to support Mazzei and says that private Democratic polling previously showed a competitive race.”

The point of which is, why sink $2 million in advertising into Oklahoma — which could have gone to Texas where Greg Abbott is in real trouble — unless Mazzei’s showing weakness himself, perhaps because everybody realizes he’s an empty suit lacking all substance, whose only hope is to scare the electorate into going with yet another nothing-to-it Republican, only the electorate appears closer and closer to not falling for the same old shenanigans.

Or maybe that’s just me.

So there’s that.

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Also, though I might have hoped for yet better good news on this front, Jena Nelson remains very much alive in her 5th District race to reach the U.S. House of Representatives, unseating Stephanie Bice to get there.

Where data’s concerned, Nelson’s campaign would really like everybody to understand the results of a weeks-old poll conducted by GBAO, a Democratically aligned polling firm with a D.C. address.

It found her to be trailing 48 percent to 43 percent with a margin of error of 4.4 percent, yes, but that’s not all it found.

Allow me to paraphrase her campaign’s release about it, sent Oct. 2, and as far as I can tell, entirely ignored by local media:

Once voters hear from both candidates, Nelson and Bice are tied at 48 percent. Nelson is winning 55 percent of independents while Bice is deeply unpopular with them: 20 percent favorable; 51 percent unfavorable. And, among voters who know Nelson, she leads 61 percent to 30 percent.

The first paragraph of the same release included these words, which are not a paraphrase, but a quote:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee [DCCC] added Oklahoma’s 5th District to its Districts in Play, putting Representative Stephanie Bice on the committee’s 2026 target list.

I can’t be certain that means the DCCC is sending mountains of cash Nelson’s way, but you’ve got to believe it’s offering help in ways it wasn’t before because resources are precious and there are some seats Democrats will never turn, like, say, Tom Cole’s 4th District seat as long as he wants it.

Still, good news, right?

The release from Nelson’s campaign was sprinkled with other hopeful nuggets.

• Like, Donald Trump is underwater 11 points, 53 percent unfavorable to 42 percent favorable, among 5th District voters.

• Like, via text-to-web and telephone interviews, 89 percent of Democratic voters in the district rate themselves 10 of 10 on a motivation scale, compared to 71 percent of Republicans.

• Like, perhaps best of all, the polling took place Sept. 17-20, and MAGA has done nothing but crash and burn and crash and burn since.

Come to think of it, the fact Bice refuses to meet her constituents at in-person town halls and refuses to meet Nelson on the debate stage suddenly makes all the sense in the world.

By debating Nelson, by even holding a live town hall in which Nelson’s name might be said, Nelson becomes better known and thus elevated, to say nothing of the media attention a debate would bring, further elevating her name. And given Nelson’s a two-to-one favorite among those with recognition of her, Bice, who’s clearly playing defense, can’t take the risk.

Which might make her a shrewd politician, also a coward.

I confess, I’d like to see the poll itself because that 61 percent to 30 percent among those who know Nelson sounds too good to be true.

At the same time, the idea the more people know Nelson the more they prefer her over Bice rings entirely true, whatever the numbers.

Returning to Munson, if you’re a regular reader, you know I’ve been critical of her unwillingness or inability to lower the boom on Mazzei, to attempt to disqualify him, rather than simply running her own positive campaign.

But I saw an ad of hers over the weekend primarily consisting of her hugging people, or that’s what I remember most, but what do you know, I was moved.

So there’s that, too.

The truth is, I like where the nation appears headed.

As for the backward state we love so much, perhaps we’re not as far behind as we think we are. Perhaps the dishonesty, cruelty and fear of one political party for the sole purpose of capturing misinformed votes can only hold us down for so long.

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Forgive me, but I must.

Sooner head coach Brent Venables was talking about his program’s most unlikely of wins, Saturday’s 27-24 victory over No. 1 Texas, and, regretfully, he came up with some lines I still can’t get my head around.

“Peyton’s interception and the blocked punt for a touchdown were huge, game-changing plays. They always are,” he said. “But that’s what we’re capable of and for whatever reason we hadn’t just put it all together.”

That’s one.

Here’s two, John Mateer the topic.

“I thought he did a great job,” Venables said, “playing quarterback, taking care of the football, taking what was there, playing complementary football, not trying to win the game in the first quarter.”

I don’t want to rain on the parade, and I really don’t want to, because, though a mile-long series of events without which Oklahoma would never have beaten Texas in front of 92,000-plus inside the Cotton Bowl occurred, it was still OU taking those events and turning them into points, frequently heroically, to nab victory.

So, no apologies, no not earning it, no questioning if they deserved to win or not, no saying they were served it on a platter even if Texas helped, no saying it’s not the biggest win of the Venables era, because it might well be.

They did it because, yes, Danny Okoye really did block a punt in the end zone, almost grabbing it right off Max Chiumento’s foot, and Dakoda Fields really did snare it on his way out the back of the end zone with a fingernail, maybe two, to spare.

They did it because, yes, Arch Manning threw a ball right into Peyton Bowen’s arms, but Bowen still had to pick his way 42 yards to the end zone and couldn’t have done it without his fellow defenders turning around to block, clearing space.

They did it because even though the Longhorns kept the Sooners’ only touchdown drive alive by roughing the passer and committing pass interference in the end zone, the drive wasn’t going anywhere in the first place without the tackle avoidance of running back Lloyd Avant, nor the offensive line that sprung him beyond the line of scrimmage before he avoided those tackles. It was the same line that, when Avant finally scored on a 2-yard run, allowed him to do it right up the middle, standing up.

Do you see?

Still, victory grabbed, after everybody contributed, on a day Avant announced himself the bell cow; the offensive line eventually moved Texas’ ballyhooed defensive line in ways it could not move New Mexico’s; to say nothing of Mateer finding Sategna along the sideline for 13 yards after Courtland Guillory intercepted Manning to give OU 19 seconds to go win it, starting at their own 39, and then hitting Sategna for 20 more yards on the very next snap, setting up Tate Sandell’s winning 47-yard field goal …

After all of that, Venables couldn’t help but say a couple of things offering real (and unintentional) insight into why the Sooners were such a sad sack of a team on their way to Dallas and why, given reasonable odds, they’ll fail to parlay Saturday’s success into the kind of success they need down the road.

Don’t get me wrong, OU is still a changed team, riding confidence it hasn’t had all season, every unit, every player having proven, yes, they can do this.

And still, the way Venables sees the game appears lacking.

Because when Venables pronounces “THAT” to be “what we’re capable of,” pointing to 14 points scored by special teams and the defense, then says, “But for whatever reason we hadn’t just put it all together,” is he really asserting scoring 14 points like that to be repeatable?

Like, sure, it could happen again, but it’s no way to have to win, and here the Sooner head coach is acting like those touchdowns, scored that way, are something to be counted upon?

And if the answer to that is, no way, he couldn’t possibly think that, then why is he saying it that way in the first place? And even if it’s a case of fumbling words, it nonetheless reflects a head coach who seems happy to make things harder than they have to be, who remains content to count upon defense and special teams to make up for his offense’s inadequacies.

Should you find that ludicrous, consider the second quote offered.

One, Venables seemed to forget Ryan Fodge’s miraculous recovery, in between two Longhorns, of a Mateer fumble well inside OU territory on the Sooners’ first drive of the game.

Two, sure, Mateer otherwise took care of the football and, yes, he did play well and, yes, he was amazing the last 19 seconds of the game, and yet Venables could not finish the quote without invoking “complementary football” before praising Mateer for “not trying to win the game in the first quarter,” apparently forgetting the Sooners gained zero first downs in the first quarter.

It’s like he never, ever wants to bring a great quarterback to Norman, because, as everybody but Venables seems to know, “complementary football” is mostly an excuse not to put a great offense on the field. And, that aside, why wouldn’t you try to win the game in the first quarter and every other quarter, too?

Or did Herm Edwards — “You play to win the game” — have it wrong?

So there it is.

If Venables is happy to punt it back and forth like a game of ping-pong against OU’s next three opponents, Kentucky, at Mississippi State and South Carolina, the chances of winning each will be greatly reduced. And that’s before closing at Florida, against Ole Miss and Texas A&M, and at Missouri, more difficult games the Sooners could win, too, but not without leveraging their new and confident offense, which earned the chance against the No. 1 team in the nation on Saturday to be turned loose on future Saturdays.

I know he wants his offense to be great. It’s just not in his bones to emphasize making it great in the same way he emphasizes making his defense great, leaving Venables’ history of terrific offense to be what it is, of not having one.

Quick, I wrote it, but can you remember how many touchdowns OU’s offense scored against Texas?

It scored one.

At some point, it may have to score three, four or five.

It will have to overcome its head coach to do it.

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For those who don’t know, Ryan and I are doing two or three of these a week and they’re really catching on. So, please watch, please subscribe to Oklahoma Memo (OklahomaMemo.com) where this and other terrific podcasts are originated. Also, late tonight, or when you wake up Sunday morning, my column from the game will be available, too.

Enjoy.

PS: Originally, this was sent only to paid subscribers. Not my intent. Please listen.

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Here are three things to think about as we think about Oklahoma and Texas.

One, after falling behind Georgia 14-0, the Sooners put together a fantastic drive, bound to halve the deficit, only for quarterback John Mateer to commit his worst turnover of the season and two more after that and OU was out of the game and that was that.

Two, though OU’s offense has gone nowhere this season, Texas’ hasn’t done much either but for 21 out-of-character and unanswered second-half points against then-No. 1 Ohio State. Still, Texas will enter the Cotton Bowl averaging just 3.6 yards per carry and just 378.5 yards of total offense, ranking 85th in the nation.

Three, in their last half of football, the Sooners tied Georgia 13-13, Mateer completed 10 of 15 passes for 95 yards and two touchdowns without an interception. And for the full 60 minutes against the Bulldogs, he completed 25 of 34 for 231 yards and two touchdowns against a single pick. In fact, if you can believe it, Mateer’s pass efficiency rating this season is 151.0 to Manning’s 141.3.

Got all that?

Some of it may be hard to believe, but it’s all true, and which of those paragraphs you believe reveals the deepest truth about OU (and maybe Texas, too) may well influence which of the following three scenarios you find most likely to play out, or that you hope or wish to play out, Saturday afternoon.

Here they are.

Stick a fork in them right now

Yeah, just stick a fork in them because if the Sooners were a Cars song, they’d be “All Mixed Up,” and if they were a Dio song, they’d be “The Last in Line,” because whatever they do, they’re bound to screw it up.

The offensive line can’t block and they’re not going to start doing it on Saturday against the No. 1 ranked Longhorns defensive front. If the game’s put on Mateer’s shoulders as it was against Georgia, it will only lead to more turnovers.

Clearly something’s been lost in translation between the coaching staff and the players because OU could never be this bad if it weren’t the case and it’s folly to believe they can put it all back together in the space of an extra week between games.

Sorry.

Maybe we’d like to believe in this team but forget about it, it’s going to be ugly.

Let the reckoning begin.

Just hang close, baby

True, the Sooners have no running game, but maybe things will be different after the bye week, maybe they’ve settled on Jonathan Hatton to finally get most of the carries and even if that doesn’t come to pass, you don’t them to become too aggressive trying too hard because they have what it takes to stay close anyway.

Remember, Texas can’t run the ball either and Manning is no great college quarterback and arguably a weaker passer than Mateer.

So, as long as the Longhorns aren’t getting away, don’t risk turnovers on anything fancy, don’t rock the boat. OU’s defense has what it takes to keep the Texas offense at bay and maybe turn it over, too. And if it can do that, it can win the game.

It’s not easy winning 10-7 or 17-14, while rolling up less than 300 or even 200 yards of total offense, but it’s that kind of game that gives the Sooners their best chance so they should go that direction.

Hang around to the end, build the pressure, maybe something falls OU’s way.

Die trying

Are you kidding?

Don’t take the game to your archrival?
Don’t come with the kitchen sink?
Don’t try to go up and down the field?

Look, Mateer can’t turn the ball over forever and he really did have success against Georgia when he wasn’t turning the ball over.

All that stuff about the team that runs the ball best wins this game every year? Well, that may be true, but that doesn’t mean the Sooners have to run first and it doesn’t mean they have to do it out of “12” and “13” personnel, which occurs when two or three tight ends line up alongside the five-man offensive line, only creating more opponent bodies to block.

So spread it out, make Texas defend in space, which ought to open up the running game if Mateer has any success to speak of through the air and the offensive line has made any use at all of the bye week.

Because the Sooners have a great defense, ranking second in the nation in first downs allowed (12 per game), third in third-down defensive efficiency (23.1 percent), fifth in total defense (238 yards per game) and 16th in scoring defense (16 points per game, a figure that would be far less but for turnovers), it’s an opportunity to attack the game by attacking the game.

Just so you know, I understand the first sentiment and may agree with it. But if it’s a matter of strategy, give me door No. 3.

The kid in me who watched the wishbone in the ’70s and ’80s and the columnist in me who’s watched so many great quarterbacks light it up from Sam Bradford forward, what I can’t abide is a team trying to keep it close by trying not to turn the ball over more than it tries to pick up yards and score points.

And if a reckoning must begin, I’ll be just fine with that, too.

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You’d think more difficult questions would have been lobbed at Brent Venables and Ben Arbuckle during this season of seasons in the wrong direction. You’d think it, but they’re hard to come by, especially given the way the press conferences are run.

It was once a free-for-all:
Get your question out front in hopes of getting it heard.

It took a little training, inferring an answer’s final period. But I was pretty good at it and what it allowed for, particularly, was a follow-up question (or two).

Now, and it’s been this way for a while, you get called upon and unless things run very short, you get called upon only once. So, what to do, follow up on an evasive answer or ask the question you came to ask for the story you came to write?

I’d mostly enter without agenda, wait for an answer to take an interesting turn, a high bar, and nail the timing to follow up, compound the interest or, sometimes, to remind that a real answer to the question had yet to be given.

C’est la vie.

Well, it may not have been a perfect question, but SoonerScoop’s George Stoia went there and Brent Venables did, too, and as soon as Tuesday afternoon it had grabbed real attention because, kind of, sort of, Venables finally pointed a finger at offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh.

Here was the question:

Bill Bedenbaugh has coached the offensive line here for some time. It seems over the last two or three years, you guys have had some instability with that position group. What do you maybe attribute that to, and what do you like about the development and trajectory of that position group under Bill going forward?

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So, there they were, Thursday night on OETA, public television.

It was Democrat Cyndi Munson and Republican Mike Mazzei vying to become Oklahoma’s next governor, the past-is-prologue, long-shot underdog Munson getting her only chance to go toe-to-toe with Mazzei, making it the thus-far most important day of her campaign by a wide margin.

Because Mazzei couldn’t begin to miss Donald Trump’s rally in Durant, happening opposite the debate’s airing, he and Munson tangled earlier in the day only for it to be aired hours later.

So there they were when Mazzei was asked first about “73 rural hospitals,” 45 of them “financially vulnerable according to a recent report,” 18 of which “are at immediate risk of closure,” while at the same time state health care agencies “are facing significant budget shortfalls.”

What’s a new governor to do?

Mazzei tried to use the long-ago car wreck he’d previously offered as an excuse to miss vote after vote in the state legislature to lend credibility toward his claim of taking health care seriously.

Nonetheless, he mentioned no hospitals, rural or not rural, in Oklahoma or otherwise, to answer the question.

“The first thing we have to address with health care is the waste, fraud and abuse that’s in the current system,” Mazzei said. “There was an audit done several years ago that discovered $1.6 billion of questionable expenses in SoonerCare every year and, unfortunately, nothing was ever done about that.”

After which, Munson took a crack at the same question.

“It’s devastating to see what’s happening across our state,” she said. “As I’ve traveled to every corner of the state of Oklahoma, talking to rural hospital administrators, visiting our hospitals, listening to the chaos and the destabilization that continues … when it comes to healthcare funding.

“That’s why I have stood up and fought for protecting Medicaid expansion in Oklahoma, to ensure that Oklahomans not only have health insurance, but that our hospitals stay whole, that those services are there for you when you need them the most.”

Pretty much the whole debate went like that.

Whether going first or last, Mazzei gave asinine answers that were only sometimes in the same area code as the query, rarely adding up to what he might do, or not do, as governor.

Meanwhile, Munson offered far better answers, tending to be more responsive to the actual question, rooted in facts, the real world and what she very much hopes to do as governor.

In so doing, she won the debate.
Also, in so doing, she blew it.

As she gave the answer already recounted, all I could think was, yes, she’s talked to everybody and she’s been to the hospitals and I really, really, really hope she banked tens and tens and tens of thousands of votes on those visits because she could not have banked many with her polite answers.

For instance, do you know the $1.6 billion about which Mazzei rants?

Let me tell you about it.

In 2020 there was indeed a state audit of SoonerCare, revealing $1.6 billion had been paid to individuals whose eligibility had not been verified. Yet, all that means is the state couldn’t verify each recipient, proving no fraud at all.

Check state auditor Cindy Byrd’s report right here if you don’t believe me.

And, if Mike Mazzei spent even the three or four minutes it took me to know that, he’d know that, too. He’s certainly had the time, the talking point part of his campaign platform since March 11.

It’s fool’s gold and he knows it.
He just doesn’t care.

All it means is he’s made the calculation lying about it, taking it utterly out of context, helps him become our next governor.

You know who must know, or ought to know, all that, too?
Cyndy Munson, that’s who.

It’s why I don’t understand why her answer could not have been this instead.

“You know Mike, every time you bring up that figure, that $1.6 billion figure, not only are you lying to every single Oklahoman, but you know you’re lying to every single Oklahoman. Both of us know all that figure means is the system wasn’t capable of verifying every Oklahoman in it, thereby proving no fraud at all. Yet, here you are threatening the health care of hundreds of thousands of Oklahomans because the last people you’re working for are Oklahomans who can’t afford your policies, who are all of us.

“Now that I think about it, given you’ve not said one word about securing health care for rural Oklahomans, who are right now watching their hospitals shrivel and die after 16 years of Republican rule, I guess you’re fine with Oklahomans dying on your watch, because that’s what’s going to happen while you prattle on about waste, fraud and abuse.

“I guess you’re fine, Mike, with your fellow Oklahomans’ blood on your hands.”

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True, it must be easier to bury your opponent with an in-real-time, quick-on-your-feet retort about a complex issue, setting the record straight, creating buzz, demanding future media coverage, maybe drawing national attention, maybe resetting your entire campaign on a keyboard rather than the stage.

But Munson’s had every day since Mazzei became the Republican nominee to have answers ready when he lies to the very voters he’s counting on to win.

It’s a tall order, but that’s what Munson had to do.

Not win the moment so much as get herself on television telling the most compelling truth about her literally dangerous opponent.

Not answer the questions as given so much as attack Mazzei for being everything he is, in advance of doing everything he’s bound to do.

It’s true, Munson called Mazzei “corrupt” in her opening statement, only to spend virtually no time driving home the point the rest of the debate.

And if she had to whiff on health care, did she have to whiff on every other chance to go after Mazzei with the precision and outrage he’s earned.

Instead, Munson appeared fine with answers she knew to be true and right, defining herself with each. Except the assignment was to not only define herself, but Mazzei, too, who gives not a shit about doing the job, only getting it.

Of course, she’d make the best governor.
Also, victory appears more distant.

So …

Hey Gentner Drummond.
Hey Robert Franklin.

I’ve asked before.
Oklahoma could really use a profile in courage right now.

Maybe show up for your state?
It, and Cyndy Munson, needs you.

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So, I did a thing.

You know, other than get married to The Great Gwenda Tuesday night in our backyard, my best and oldest friend Chris Bright officiating, even on his 60th birthday, the entire wedding party consisting of six people, giving us a witness to spare, the day also our seventh anniversary of giving it a go in the first place.

I did a thing other than that.

On Tuesday I asked ChatGPT for the most pointed pieces and posts since Oklahoma fell 41-13 at Georgia.

From Sooners SI you could read about how poorly John Mateer played and, mostly, how it’s deja vu all over again for Brent Venables and his Sooners.

You know: losing season, 10-win season, losing season, 10-win season and, now, who knows how big a losing season?

Then, over at USA Today, where John Brice writes Sooners Wire, the big question asked if Venables is now on “the hot seat.”

Brice, of course, must feel pretty good knowing the national trio of Yahoo’s Andy Staples, Ross Dellenger and Steven Godfrey is asking the same thing under the headline, “Is Brent Venables’ time at Oklahoma coming to an end.”

Meanwhile, the Associated Press’ Maura Carey, on hand in Athens, charted the decision to stick with Mateer despite three killer turnovers, leading with Venables’ quote about considering benching him and closing with a quote from Mateer, another from Venables and a little history.

Also, SEC Country’s Jackson Fryburger wrote a sort of pro-con thing about Mateer and the Sooners, under the headline, “Oklahoma Has a Quarterback Question It Can No Longer Ignore.”

All of this, really just the headlines, is a fine barometer of what a college football nation thinks of OU.

It thinks it’s seen it before. It thinks it might have consequences for the head coach, despite his having recently and wrongly received a new contract. It thinks the Sooners “Can No Longer Ignore” their “Quarterback Question.”

Then again, if you were to read each entry, presuming you watch the games, you might not feel particularly more informed than when you started.

Or, perhaps that’s too harsh.

Perhaps you’d be informed a bit. But what they would not do for you, football metaphor alert, is move the ball.

All but one.

Ryan Aber, ex of The Oklahoman, now contributing to Sooners SI, came out Monday with a deep dive on the running game.

It informed, it offered historical context and present-day perspective, it told you a story you should understand in all of its awfulness.

So, score one for Ryan, who took a moment to congratulate me on my marriage, too … of course that’s not why I mention it. I’m not in the free compliments business.

Now, I’ll try moving the ball.
Let me know how it goes.

You may recall I spent my postgame column explaining, despite everything, OU put hope on the table coming out of Athens that was not present coming out of a home-field victory over New Mexico.

By choosing to throw the ball first rather than run it, turnovers aside, the Sooners finally mounted drives, finally put scoring more points on the table, which puts future wins on the table, too, providing Mateer can cure his turnover woes.

There’s still that.
Now, the flip side.

What remains?
Little good.

In fact, rather than try to beat Texas two Saturdays from now, and Kentucky afterward, Mississippi State after that and South Carolina after that, OU should merely seek competence instead.

Do that, let the chips fall.

Competence.

The lack of it begins at the very top, in university president Joe Harroz and rookie athletic director Roger Denny, who added additional seasons to the contract Venables signed two off-seasons ago, marking the first time he was extended when he shouldn’t have been. That contract played a large role in his remaining employed following the ’24 season, the buyout so big, while his new one appears bound to keep him beyond this season.

Though the new buyout remains unknown, it was previously 100 percent of his deal. So, given his new one pays an annual $10.5 million through 2031, it would seem to be a WHOLE lot of money.

Oh, yeah, they let men’s hoops coach Porter Moser keep his job, too, despite plainly getting the worst results in program history going back to Bob Stevens, who went 46-79 from ’63 to ’67.

Now, let’s talk football.

While Venables has turned the Sooner defense into a world beater, his offense has gone the other way in a sprint.

Now unbeaten as Mississippi State’s head coach, Jeff Lebby ran the Sooner offense in ’22 and ’23 and though I found him to be a deficient play-caller, OU nonetheless picked up 474 and 507 yards of total offense per game those seasons, scoring 32.8 and 41.7 points per outing.

It was 331 yards and 24 points in ’24, ranking 113th and 97th among Division I programs. It was 354.3 and 26.2 in ’25, ranking 90th and 78th. It is 329.7 and 25 right now, ranking 115th and 99th, and would not be nearly that high without a 51-0 opening-day rout at UTEP that came with 401 yards of offense.

It should probably be mentioned Venables himself is his third defensive coordinator and Ben Arbuckle is his fourth offensive coordinator.

Is that competence?
Feels like a breakdown.

Also, the next time a Sooner offensive coordinator is granted the authority to hire his own staff will be the first time since Venables came aboard.

Now let’s get into the game.

Mateer should have been replaced, at least for a series or two, just to save him from himself, after he dropped the ball that led to the 80-plus yard scoop and score last Saturday. What followed, instead, were two more giveaways and an irretrievable game by the half.

Maybe OU’s now better off having played Mateer after the half, but incompetence still reigns.

It reigns because not going to a backup at any point during the first half must mean the Sooners have no confidence — none, zilch, nada — in backups Whitt Newbauer and Bowe Bentley.

It literally can’t not mean that … well, unless they do have confidence in one or both and still wouldn’t play them, which would be even more bananas.

But if they can’t play, why are they even on the roster and what does it tell us about the coaching staff, Venables first and Arbuckle second? What does it tell us about general manager Jim Nagy who failed to put together a roster with a backup quarterback capable of entering a game when the starter has short-circuited for all to see.

Which brings memories.

OU did not make a play for Dillon Gabriel two seasons ago, after which he left for Oregon and finished third in the ’24 Heisman voting. Nope, the Sooners opted for Jackson Arnold, who’s now on his third team, quarterbacking UNLV and not particularly well at that.

Arnold’s backup in Norman was Michael Hawkins, now excelling at West Virginia after backing up Mateer last season. Probably, letting Hawkins go was the right thing for Hawkins and the Sooners, but that’s no defense for where OU finds itself now, without capable backups and with a No. 1 who’s failed to perform despite being a two-year starter on the team and a three-year starter and four-year prospect under Arbuckle’s tutelage.

What gives?

Let’s go granular.

Twice against the Bulldogs, OU could not get out of the huddle fast enough and wound up calling time out to avoid delay penalties.

That can be overcome, sure, but if the first rule is do no harm … not competent.

But Mateer stayed in the game and eventually the Sooners scored, Rocky Beers catching a 17-yard pass not quite four minutes into the third quarter.

Venables chose to go for two.

WHAT?

Let’s see, if you make it a 20-point game instead of a 21-point game … wait, do you think Venables was harboring a two-touchdown, two-field goal comeback plan?

Four scores instead of three?

Math majors nor anybody else can make any sense of it.

Plainly not competent.

How about running it up the middle following a half-the-distance offsides call hoping to get the two points when you can’t run the ball, haven’t run the ball in the game and haven’t been able to run the ball all season?

Or, give Aber the assist on this one, when the last time you ran the ball this poorly Bud Wilkinson was still 10 years from Norman and a very young Walter Cronkite was calling the Sooners on the radio?

The only sense to be made of Arbuckle making that call is his seeking to please Venables in a case of Stockholm Syndrome run amok. So maybe Venables made it.

Fifty-fifty, I’d say.

Well, unless they didn’t want to hurt 14-year offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh’s feelings, whose line has been decidedly dreadful a third straight season.

Yet he remains.
So much incompetence.

Tangent, guess how many yards and points Nebraska’s been rolling up four victories into the season, the last a 31-13 triumph over Michigan State? It’s 482.7 and 42.5, but who’s counting.

Remember the old Talking Heads album, Stop Making Sense? If Sooner football were to put out an album, it would be called Make It Make Sense.

So, sure, wins are nice.
But OU can’t worry about that.

It must start by ending the dysfunction everybody can see but a $10.5 million head coach hasn’t begun to solve.

It should begin with doing no harm.
It should begin with competence.

Do that and the wins might come, anyway.

Author’s Note: Previously in this column, OU president Joseph Harroz was referred to as Nick Harroz. He is now referred to as Joe Harroz, because that’s what he’s typically called and Oklahoma Columnist is not formal. It does, though, regret the error.

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THE HOME OFFICE, Okla. — Incompetent, inept, inadequate, inefficient and without detail orientation, thy name is Brent Venables and the Sooner football team he coaches.

Also, believe it or not, this Oklahoma bunch is more capable coming out of Saturday’s 41-13 loss to No. 2 Georgia than it was coming off the previous Saturday’s 14-6 victory over New Mexico.

Believe it.

No, I don’t understand how Bill Bedenbaugh continues to coach an offensive line that can’t possibly be listening to him any longer.

The Sooners carried for 1.9 yards per attempt against the Lobos and did it again against the Bulldogs. But if that sounds like progress, given the opponent, it isn’t. OU carried 14 times for just one yard in the first half, when Georgia maintained full defensive motivation.

No, I have no great answer for the Sooners having to burn two of their first-half timeouts to avoid delay-of-game penalties (and twice taking the penalty to save their last timeout), but I might have a less-than-great, yet no-less-real reason for it and it may be the crux.

Because Saturday was Day 1 of a new Sooner offense and Day 1 comes with silly mistakes.

Perhaps you noticed, but OU did not spend the day putting two or three tight ends along the line of scrimmage, the formation you’ve heard called “12” or “13 personnel.”

Nope, the Sooners spread things out, created space and did not, generally, run their heads against the wall just to prove they could gain 1 or 2 ground yards when it matters, because they can’t.

Progress.

Because John Mateer flat dropped the ball facing third-and-goal from the 2 — after he inexplicably handed the ball to Lloyd Avant facing second-and-goal from the 4, giving OU one fewer play to reach the end zone because the Sooners, momentarily, forgot they can’t run the ball — leading to an 85-yard scoop-and-score touchdown from Georgia’s Chris Cole, and because two more horrendous turnovers followed on the Sooners’ next two drives, it’s easy to dismiss him entirely.

Indeed, he deserved to be pulled several different times.

Nonetheless, when he wasn’t dropping the ball, or throwing it to the other team — which cannot keep happening; stipulated — he didn’t play that badly, completing 25 of 34 passes for 231 yards and two touchdowns.

If you can possibly believe it, even as Mateer struggled to find the confidence to make some of the throws he in the end wound up making and failed to find the confidence to make other throws at all, he nevertheless finished with a 144.1 pass efficiency rating, significantly higher than Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton’s 118.7.

Stockton, who completed his first nine throws, finished 14 of 25 for 171 yards, a TD and a pick included.

As it happened, it wound up better Mateer stayed in the game than be supplanted by Whitt Newbauer or Bowe Bentley, his backups, in whom Venables and offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle must have no confidence at all.

Because the way it went, on the day Arbuckle finally got to run an offense that looked a lot more like the one he ran at Washington State, post halftime, Mateer completed 10 of 15 passes for two TDs without a pick, one of those scores a 14-yard submarining, sidearm, flick-of-the-wrist bullet into Manny Choice’s hands, maybe the best throw he’s made since coming to Norman.

Ergo, it would appear, a modicum of confidence earned by a player who had to have none of it entering halftime.

And the Sooners get two weeks before having to face Texas, and if they can just be competitive in that one, a quite winnable game follows against Kentucky and if they can win that one, well, you know …

It’s a lot of ifs and buts, but remind yourself what OU had coming out of its tussle with New Mexico, because it had nothing.

This loss, as odd as it may sound, puts more on the Sooner table than the previous Saturday’s win.

Finally, they’re mostly not trying to do what they cannot begin to do (and they can still let Bedenbaugh go, bring Kevin Wilson in his place, and maybe change that up, too).

Finally, their offensive coordinator ought to feel empowered. And though it might be too late to get the best out of Arbuckle given the hand he’d been dealt prior to Saturday, it also might not be.

Finally, their quarterback has played at least one good half and it’s the most recent one he played, and he’s got a week off before having to do it again.

The defense, despite the lopsided scoreboard, I promise, is still the defense, too.

Gosh, what an awful game to watch.
And still OU got little better?
Seems like it, at least.

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Try.

Perhaps the geniuses who run Sooner football, Jim Nagy aside, because there’s not a lot a general manager can do come Saturday, will at least do that when Oklahoma arrives at Georgia’s Sanford Stadium.

Do not try to keep doing the same things that have gotten no results against Michigan and New Mexico, that have embarrassed Oklahoma against the Wolverines and Lobos.

Try to win, instead.

We’re talking to you, Brent Venables.

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From impossibly bad, to unthinkably worse is one way to describe the news coming out of Monday football practice in Norman.

Though the severity is not yet clear, and the absolute nature of the circumstances by which it occurred remains murky, Sooner defensive tackle David Stone has suffered “an apparent knee injury,” reported SoonerScoop’s George Stoia.

We can bicker about who might be the best player on the team, but Stone’s clearly in the running and now appears gone, creating a huge blow to the only side of the ball keeping Oklahoma in football games.

In fact, without him, the Sooners likely lose to New Mexico last Saturday.

Not good at all.

There is also this.

Stone or no Stone, a column was coming out today and wasn’t about the defense, but the offense, about which I’ve suddenly seen the light.

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So let’s start here.

Ever heard of a guy named Daylan Smothers?

Well, he was a true freshman in 2023, receiving 11 carries, after which he transferred to North Carolina State, where in 2024 he rushed for 571 yards at 6.4 per carry and in 2025 for 939 yards at 5.9 per carry. He’s now at Texas, where he’s carried 41 times for 198 yards, including the Longhorns’ last two touchdowns against then No. 1 Ohio State two Saturdays ago.

Wait, it gets better.

Ever heard of Eugene Brooks or Cayden Green, a couple offensive linemen?

Green started five games at left guard during his 2023 true freshman season and Brooks, arriving a year later, played in only three games his true freshman season. Each transferred out after one year in crimson and cream.

Brooks is now at UCLA and Green at Missouri, where he was a first-team preseason SEC selection to enter the season. Green is a consensus pick to be gone by the middle of the second round in the coming draft. Brooks is expected gone by the end of the second round by NFLdraftbuzz.com in the following draft.

How about that?

One more.

Michael Hawkins was in Norman only last season, having backed up Jackson Arnold two years ago and John Mateer last season.

Through three games as West Virginia’s starting quarterback this season, he’s completed 26 of 38 throws, five for touchdowns without an interception, while also running for 322 yards at 7.3 per carry and six touchdowns.

No, Hawkins probably wasn’t an all-world quarterback the Sooners let get away, but he was never without capabilities and he went to a program led by a skipper, Rich Rodriguez, who knows how to exploit and manage offense talent, imagination and creativity baked into the formula.

That’s more than any offensive coordinator has done for any quarterback since Brent Venables breezed into town from Clemson.

Meanwhile, after one year on the job, offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle has since been made to run an offense, very much of the time, at least, that is nothing like the offense he ran at Washington State.

Sure, left to his own devices, Mateer might well have failed anyway. But wouldn’t it have been nice to see him have the chance. It couldn’t possibly have gone any worse.

Other players could have made the point, too, like Tawee Walker, Zion Ragins and no less than Dillon Gabriel, whom the Sooner braintrust was fine and dandy with not trying to keep, fearful Arnold might bolt and what a tragedy that would have been.

Now, let’s talk coaches.

In 2024, when Arbuckle was still at Washington State, here was OU’s offensive staff:

Seth Littrell, offensive coordinator; Joe Jon Finley, tight ends; Kevin Johns, quarterbacks; Bill Bedenbaugh, line; Emmett Jones, receivers; DeMarco Murray, running backs.

One year later, Arbuckle seemingly at the offensive helm, Finley, Bedenbaugh, Jones and Murray all remained on staff at the same positions, while Johns packed up for Stillwater.

This year, though Jason Witten has replaced Finley and the Kansas City Chiefs took Murray off Sooner hands, forcing Deland McCullough’s hire, Jones and Bedenbaugh remain, while Kevin Wilson bounced forward from offensive analyst to assistant head coach for offense.

Those may be fine names, yes, but were any of them chosen by Arbuckle? Or were all of them chosen by Venables?

In the press releases announcing both Witten’s and McCullough’s hire, no quotes from Arbuckle were included, though plenty were given to Venables and the subjects themselves.

Wilson did not get a press release.

Does any of that seem odd to you? Does any of it, or all of it, point toward Venables having both autonomy over the defense and virtual autonomy over the offense, too?

Seems like it might.

Or does the 31-year-old Arbuckle really have it, though it appears he hired none of his position coaches, save assistant quarterbacks coach John Kuceyeski, previously an analyst, who joined him coming from Pullman to Norman.

So, maybe, you get what you deserve when you put so little trust in your opposite coordinator, when you’ve plucked and picked your offensive staff for that coordinator, when you’ve rolled over that coordinator in announcing who you’ve plucked and picked, when your entire offensive track record since taking the program has been insanely suspect since; see Smothers, Brooks, Green, Ragins, Hawkins, Gabriel, Littrell and Finley for proof.

I feel compelled to point out, I really like Brent Venables, I always have and I love it every time he goes on about not taking shortcuts, building relationships and culture.

Also, he appears to coach in fear of giving up a level of control to others every highly successful head coach must give up, especially those who remain coordinators. Too often, he surrounds himself with folks who may or may not be the best choices but he already knows very well, like Ted Roof, Zac Alley, Littrell, Wilson, Murray and Finley.

It’s not working now.
It never worked in the first place.

I’m open to alternate explanations.
But this one feels right.

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From impossibly bad, to unthinkably worse is one way to describe the news coming out of Monday football practice in Norman.

Though the severity is not yet clear, and the absolute nature of the circumstances by which it occurred remains murky, Sooner defensive tackle David Stone has suffered “an apparent knee injury,” reported SoonerScoop’s George Stoia.

We can bicker about who might be the best player on the team, but Stone’s clearly in the running and now appears gone, creating a huge blow to the only side of the ball keeping Oklahoma in football games.

In fact, without him, the Sooners likely lose to New Mexico last Saturday.

Not good at all.

There is also this.

Stone or no Stone, a column was coming out today and wasn’t about the defense, but the offense, about which I’ve suddenly seen the light.

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Perhaps the problem with my suggestion Oklahoma choose a path and commit to it was not making it until Friday and what are Brent Venables, Ben Arbuckle and Kevin Wilson supposed to do with an idea that comes in the day before?

So, if you want, blame me.
But maybe it’s for the best.
Because now I’m confident enough to choose for them.

Quit trying to run the ball.

Just stop, because it’s just so embarrassing.

More embarrassing, even, than a quarterback who can’t stop throwing interceptions and more embarrassing than a coordinator who knows not what he wants the offense to do, even if he now knows he can’t keep trying to run the ball.

Though there were several nuggets from the interviews following OU’s putrid 14-6 victory over New Mexico, one came when Venables was asked if there’s anything he can count on from his offense.

“Not really,” he said. “… So you watched the game, did you see anything?”

If only his offensive coordinator, Arbuckle, could read from the same script instead of appearing fake mad and fake urgent during his turn at the mic.

“We’ve got to put our head down, put our nose to the grindstone and go back to work, and really figure out what we’re really good at and what our identity is going to be,” he said. “Ultimately, I think it’s going to come down to being a tough physical football team.”

Really?
Hasn’t that ship sailed?
Wouldn’t you rather win?

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Let’s go over a few plays.

Second quarter, a drive beginning from the Sooner 5, Arbuckle dialed up a pitch sweep to the left and Tory Blalock lost four yards. Lose one more and it’s a safety.

Once again, OU appeared to utterly botch its final drive entering the half.

With no timeouts, facing first-and-10 at the Lobo 32, Xavier Robinson was handed the ball. A questionable play-call inside the final minute, he gained nine. Next, knowing the clock would stop momentarily to move the chains, Robinson was handed the ball again and needing a yard, he gained none.

The Sooners barely had time to spike it and Tate Sandell missed a 41-yard field goal wide right.

In the fourth quarter, after Hatton gained four first-down yards, he was handed the ball again and gained none.

Mateer found Rocky Beers on the next play for 22 yards and, first-and-10 at his own 43, found Hayden Hansen for eight.

He handed it to Hatton again, who lost one.

OU now facing third-and-3, Mateer was off-target trying to find Sategna on the far sideline.

Given Mateer’s struggles, why call that play?

Because it was a better option than handing the ball to anybody on a day the Sooners were averaging about two yards per carry, especially when the previous two carries went for nothing and less.

Maybe OU can run for negative yardage against Georgia and less still against Texas, because that’s where it’s heading.

Mateer threw interceptions, gave the fans an assist on his 53-yard touchdown throw to Sategna — “I kind of heard everybody screaming,” he said, “and then I’m like, ‘Well, you know, something must be going on,’ and I see Isaiah put his hand up” — and still there’s no other way to say it, his throwing the ball more is a depressingly better option than the Sooners deciding, after they couldn’t run the ball against Michigan or New Mexico, it’s sure to do it against SEC foes.

I had this crazy idea as the fourth quarter wound down, the Sooners barely managing to remain on top as the Lobos’ last drive ended on downs inside the OU 20.

Fire Bill Bedenbaugh.

He’s the offensive line coach, he’s in his 14th season, meaning he’s worked for Bob Stoops, Lincoln Riley and Venables, which is nuts.

His line did almost nothing last season and almost as little the year before.

Everybody seems to want assistant head coach for offense Kevin Wilson to replace Arbuckle, or take his play-calling duties away, yet before Wilson was a great coordinator he was a great line coach, so maybe that makes more sense.

How much better can the offense become without the line getting better and what’s the best way to make that happen?

Yet, for all we know, the problem with the offensive line is general manager Jim Nagy, because what we don’t know week to week about the teams we watch in this new college football world could fill the Grand Canyon.

Maybe OU’s getting just what it paid for.

What do we know now we didn’t know a week ago?

We know Mateer, even as he completed 19 of 25 passes for 238 yards and two touchdowns (and two picks), is still not much of a Power Four quarterback.

“I’m tired of coming up here and saying I made mistakes,” he said. “I believe it will be better.”

We know the line’s ability to give the offense a run game it can do anything with is nil.

Maybe if Mateer could make a little hay, get the defense to back off the line of scrimmage a little, maybe then it could spring a running back for more than two or three yards.

Maybe then, should then ever come.

The final score says OU won.

Not that it felt like it for the fans inside the stadium or anywhere else.

Great defense, still.

But a bad, bad team.

Miles and miles from good.

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