As Venables talks big game, smaller things remain achievable for Sooners
Author’s note: Perhaps we’ll just keep doing this every week, whether I’m facing an early deadline or not for the Sooner GAMEDAY edition of my column, also published in-season Saturdays in The Norman Transcript. Below, a couple of times, you’ll notice a reference to “today” when “today” is clearly not today, but Saturday, when Oklahoma plays host to Maine, taking advantage of the fourth non-conference contest each Southeastern Conference football program is afforded. I could change those references to “Saturday” instead, I did last week, but here I’ve decided to leave them, just as they’ll be in the print edition of Saturday’s paper. Enjoy.
Give it up to Brent Venables, the man can cover his bases.
Honestly.
Because he said something this week that a guy like me, who looks for holes in others’ arguments while trying to keep them out of my own, can appreciate.
“If we get out of our own way, if we don’t beat Oklahoma, if we do the things that winning requires, even though we have [many] down with injuries,” Venables said, “if we do that, and it’s hard, it’s always going to be hard … But if we do that, we can play with anybody, we can beat anybody that we play against.”
I’m not sure that’s true but, thankfully, erasing all mistakes is unlikely to be required to beat Maine, today’s opponent atop Owen Field, the Black Bears not even an FBS program but an FCS program, limited to 63 scholarships, 22 fewer than Oklahoma.
Also, whether what Venables said is true or not, seeing a quote like that doesn’t make me think, “Hey, maybe this band of Sooners are actually much closer to respectability than has appeared.”
Instead, I wonder if Venables and staff are any good at this coaching thing at all, because if all that stands in OU’s way is getting out of its own way, how bad must the coaching be given the Sooners’ season-long futility.
If they’re good players, shouldn’t they play well?
Right?
Here’s the kicker.
Venables wasn’t finished.
“That may not be popular for people to hear and everybody who wants to find negative in all of it,” he said. “That’s cool, too, but I know what I know.”
See?
He anticipated how a quote like that might be taken negatively and decided, you know what, he doesn’t care, he knows what he knows.
I feel bamboozled.
Perhaps the only real way to respond is to hope Venables is right, to hope this team, despite injuries at wide receiver, despite not having a great running back, despite sporting a horrendously-porous-at-best offensive line and a first-year starting quarterback still learning his way, can still be a good team, even this season, because the head coach does, in fact, know what he knows.
Argue amongst yourselves.
From this space, however, what’s still achievable appears simple, not so ambitious, and can begin today against Maine.
One, just as it seemed before the season began, for even then it appeared the Sooners would be playing behind a makeshift line without a great running back, so much depends on Jackson Arnold’s development and today’s an opportunity for him to enjoy a big game, gain some confidence and feel like he can still be the man again.
Giving Michael Hawkins such a long tryout in the top spot, through the entirety of the Texas game, did Arnold no favors, but he’s been good lately, completing 40 of 67 passes for 407 yards and three touchdowns without an interception despite being sacked over and over and over again his last two Saturdays.
And because the intimidation factor should be nil and the athletic advantage should be great, it’s also a chance for that much maligned offensive line to prove, at least to itself, it really does know what it’s trying to do, and if it can do that against the Black Bears maybe it can do it again against a none-too-great Missouri squad a week from today.
Indeed, taking that kind of step might be required for line coach Bill Bedenbaugh to keep his job.
Even the defense can find its game again.
It was good enough to win at Ole Miss if only the offense might have duplicated its first-half success in the second, and still the third quarter was abominable, the Rebels gaining more than 10 yards per snap.
And though it may not matter by the spring, what lay in front of OU remains a canvas upon which offensive coordinator Joe Jon Finley may continue spreading his wings, and he looked pretty good last week, too, given his first opportunity to coordinate and call plays.
None of it may lead to any victories after today, but it might and the Sooners badly need the extra practice time six wins and a bowl game would afford.
Venables sees a vastly bigger world of possibilities available to this team than most of us.
Good for him.
Yet, on a smaller scale, big things remain for OU to salvage.
I've made my opinions well known concerning venables and his total lack of HC acumen, but what I really want to know is bedenbaugh's role in this disaster of an O-line and his inability to get it to even higher level high school standards. I knew when I saw some of the transfer portal players OU had landed that these were not players to hang your hat on. But to be this bad? I want to know bedenbaugh's place in the hiring of these sub-par retreads. Were they his choices or were they forced down his throat by venables?