Maybe it’s as simple as Brent Venables failing horribly to find his Mike Leach, his Lincoln Riley, his offensive guy he could leave alone to do a great job, rather than naming Seth Littrell offensive coordinator and elevating Joe Jon Finley into an important sounding title along the way.
Maybe it’s just that.
Well, that and allowing the offensive line to die through inattention, defection and a poor job in the transfer portal, but maybe the right offensive hire between now and next season can take care of that, too.
A coordinator who’s a real quarterback coach, who knows what he’s doing and how to explain what he’s doing, who can fess up to his unit's limitations without killing confidence.
Or maybe it’s so much bigger, because Venables sounds entirely on top of things and yet Oklahoma produced what it produced as everybody watched in horror Saturday afternoon at Owen Field.
South Carolina rolled 35-9 and it wasn’t remotely that close thanks to five minutes-plus of the most forgettable football in program history.
The Gamecocks led 21-0 out of the chute thanks to a pair of defensive touchdowns — 36-yard fumble return from Tonka Hemingway that began as a sack; 65-yard interception return from Nick Emmanwori — and a 3-yard run from Raheim Sanders, set up by Emmanwori’s first pick on the Sooners’ very first snap.
It was not Michael Hawkins’ day.
By the time it was over, though Jackson Arnold was reasonable in relief — oh, yeah, he’s back — OU still failed to break 300 yards of total offense, added only a lone touchdown to go with Zach Schmitt’s 44-yard field goal and, like nobody’s surprised any more, yielded an impossible nine sacks.
The hard part is we can’t know, not for sure, if replacing Littrell might solve the ills, if it’s all on Venables no matter how good his team may look coming off a buss or how terrific he sounds behind the mic, nor even if Littrell’s to blame at all given the cacophony of missteps that had to occur to produce this offensive line, this quarterback situation, not to mention a running back room that could really use Tawee Walker.
We can’t know.
We can, though, listen.
“This is a game that will punish you for the mistakes that you make,” Venables said, mostly referring to Saturday’s turnovers, not multiple offseason decisions along the way that helped lead to Saturday, so many of which had to be the wrong ones, otherwise this Sooner staff’s among the worst collection of game coaches in the nation.
“We have a strong culture,” Venables said. “We have a strong belief system.”
They probably do, but a lot of good that does anybody when it produces results like this.
Littrell was harder to listen to because he didn’t say the same old things this time around, he’s clearly a proud man and coach, and yet appears to have no chance.
Perhaps because he has none given his personnel, or because he, himself, is limited, not being a natural quarterback coach, not being on staff long enough to affect personnel, not being a high-flying savant when, good chance, he was never expected to be.
Hard to know.
Some things we do know?
We know they’ve botched the quarterback situation.
If we accept Dillon Gabriel always thought he was headed to the NFL and, after Jeff Lebby left to coach Mississippi State, he was never coming back, shouldn’t OU still have been ready with a hard sell no matter the circumstances?
Gabriel’s unbeaten at Oregon right now and the Sooners, now 4-3, could be 2-5.
Now, cast that aside, focus on the present and still it’s been a mess.
Arnold was lifted for Hawkins because he was struggling and turned the ball over against Tennessee, and still there was no reason to assume the change was permanent, yet OU did all it could to make it so, never giving Arnold a chance against Texas no matter how inept the offense.
Even Saturday, Venables was at least a possession late returning to Arnold, a mistake costing seven points when Hawkins’ two turnovers in four snaps became three in nine.
Desperation set in by the second quarter, when the Sooners settled on a fake punt from their own 30-yard line — WHAT!! — throwing a screen pass from punter Luke Elzinga to tight end Bauer Sharp (right after Sharp dropped a first-down toss facing third-and-4), but a block was missed, Sharp went nowhere and what was OU thinking in the first place?
Pick up a first down and go drive 65 yards down the field?
Fake a punt from midfield, not there.
On and on it went.
By the end, thankfully, it was mostly where the Sooners had been against Houston, or even Temple minus the turnovers.
Horrendous offensive line, making it hard to move the ball, making it hard to score.
Still, Arnold became OU’s first 200-yard passer of the season, completing 18 of 36 with a score and no picks.
It quit being worse.
The defense remained terrific, basically allowing 13 points and a paltry 254 yards.
The root of it?
Argue amongst yourselves.
The solution?
Same thing.
What’s clear is it’s embarrassing.
“What we put out there today as a football team is nothing remotely close to the standard here at the University of Oklahoma,” Venables said.
Sure enough.
Is bedinbaugh's absence from the speaking platform his way of distancing himself from the atrocious product he has put on the field week after week? Maybe it's time for him to go, along with the inept littrell, murray, alley, et al. But mostly it's venables who has to go. He set this entire sequence of failure in motion way back when he pre-ordained arnold as the future of OU football. He bought into Libby's coronation of the kid before he ever threw a pass during a game. How could any qualified HC mis-evaluate a talent as wildly as venables did on the QB. His actions are simply unforgivable. Get him out of Norman for the second and final time...or move him to DC and hire a true HC who then lures a top young offensive mind for OC. littrell was a terrible choice from the get go. A guy like him should watch every other NCAAF game on Saturdays and pick up a dozen useful plays to bolster his meager talent. Has he ever seen a QB throw a quick 7-10 yard slant over the middle? Hell, does he even consider the middle of the field as offensive territory? Never seen such a sad sack masquerading as an offensive coach. alley deserves a ton of criticism for his secondary that can't cover and the tackles that continue to be missed. The once-vaunted D is great on the line and linebackers but has no coverage skills whatsoever. This season will go down in history as one of the absolute worst in OU annals. The only salvation now is to dump the waste and start searching for the appropriate coaches and venables replacement.