Don't go looking for a Sooner football forecast, because it's not available
Preseason stories may appear to give indicators about what might happen when the games arrive, but in an age of less media availability they almost never do
Because I know I’ll be writing about it, I try to keep up with Sooner football.
This time around, though, it’s unclear if I’ll be among credentialed media covering the team for just the second time since 1997. But, if we’re being honest, chasing the Sooners around daily is a full-time job and Oklahoma Columnist isn’t quite cut out for that.
The more paid subscriptions I gather make more coverage possible, yet, momentarily, this venture pays about 15 percent of my final year as a full-time sportswriter. Yes, I’d love for you to become a paid subscriber (though free subscriptions are appreciated, too).
What I remain quite good at is sniffing out what’s really real, what’s really not, what could be real and what never will be, matched with a writing voice capable of explaining such things fairly well.
So here we are, three weeks shy of the first game of the season, Aug. 30, when Illinois State visits Owen Field for a rare early evening kick, and here’s what I can tell you.
We don’t know anything.
Or, maybe, we almost don’t know anything.
One of the two.
Often, I begin a column one day and sculpt and edit it another. And when you’re your own sculptor/editor, some time between is a good thing.
So, it’s possible there will have been a whole new round of headlines by the time you read this Saturday and beyond. Nonetheless, Friday afternoon, here’s the latest from the three different newspapers covering the Sooners daily.
From The Oklahoman:
• “OU football tight end Jaren Kanak impressing after linebacker switch.”
• “Brent Venables senses ‘synergy’ among OU football’s new-look offense.”
From The Tulsa World:
• “Jacob Sexton hopes to settle in at left tackle after bouncing around OU’s O-line last fall.”
• “C.J. Coldon believes his ‘little cousin’ Keontez Lewis can be an elite receiver.”
From The Norman Transcript:
• “How freshman ‘athletic freak’ Elijah Thomas is impressing teammates, coaches at OU fall camp.”
• “How former linebacker Jaren Kanak has settled into his new offensive role.”
First, this thought:
Headline writing for the internet is horrendously boring, but that’s what you get in a search-engine-optimization world.
Nothing like the old days when you could count on eyes on the page and the point of the headline was to draw attention with cleverness, a turn of phrase, maybe a pun, something like “Kan Jaren do it at tight end?”
See what I mean?
Now, the point of this exercise.
It’s not that these stories don’t offer sought after information for the fan, it’s just that they offer little reliable information pertaining to what the Sooners might look like on the field when the games start counting, though they’re often dressed up like they do.
I’ve written many such stories myself, when you have what you have and you’ve got to turn it into copy, despite relying mostly on what people have merely told you is happening, almost none of which you’ve seen with your own eyes, which on the sports beat, unless it’s for matters off the field, court, pitch and mat, are typically your two best sources.
So, Jaren Kanak you say?
He spent three years trying to make a dent at linebacker with only reasonable success and most of that as a sophomore. Now, in his senior year, he has one season to make a dent at tight end against, just maybe, the most difficult schedule in the nation, Illinois State, Temple and Kent State notwithstanding.
Bright side, in Colton Sulley’s article for the Oklahoman, the story begins with a difficult catch Kanak made during one of the brief stanzas media was allowed to witness practice, so that’s something.
Also, the primary source for both stories beyond Kanak is linebacker Kendal Daniels, a transfer from Oklahoma State, who often goes against Kanak in practice.
On the one hand, Kanak could become a breakout star. On the other, which history says is far more likely, he won’t, because it’s his first time to play the position — in high school, offensively, he played quarterback and wide receiver — he’s wasn’t No. 1 on the depth chart to begin with, because that’s been Kaden Helms, who himself played in only eight games last season, catching two passes, spanning 19 yards.
Kanak’s newsworthy because position changes are interesting and Helms is now hurt, as he’s been frequently since arriving in Norman. He was seen sporting a “soft cast on his right arm” according to the Transcript, while being said to have been wearing “a cast on his right hand” according to The Oklahoman.
If I’m a Sooner fan, I hope for the best, but presume, yet again, the tight end position to be a difficult one for the Sooner offense.
Mason Young of the Tulsa World penned the Jacob Sexton story and for my money, if you’re looking for one guy to explain the Sooners to you, choose him.
The premise of the Sexton story is last season, given injuries and the constant search for an offensive line that wouldn’t allow a bounty of sacks — before Sexton himself wound up injured, missing the last five games of the season — he bounced all over the unit, between three different positions.
Yet, this season, if injuries don’t mount and he can spend the whole year at left tackle, as he’s done in camp to date, the line, just given his steady presence, might be a whole lot better than it was a year ago.
The reason Young’s such a good read is he’s always offering extra information.
In that same story, you also learn tumult on the line last season led to nine sacks suffered against South Carolina and 10 suffered against Ole Miss the very next week.
You learn Sexton played in 10 games all the way back in 2022 and was primed to start the Cheez-It-Bowl until suffering a “serious knee injury” during preparations for the game
You also learn the following season, 2023, Sexton finished as OU’s staring left tackle, the result of a concussion suffered by Tyler Guyton, who chose not to return to the team and to get ready for the NFL draft instead.
So, you’re hit with all kinds of meaningful nuggets, putting Sexton’s story in a context that should make following him more interesting.
But can he excel at left tackle and what about the rest of the line, too?
Well, he’s still not spent a whole season playing any single position since arrival. As for the rest of the line, though OU’s recruited the high schools and portal well, who knows, because there’s not even the semblance of a cohesive unit returning and if line play is sub-adequate, it’s bound to put a strain on every other offensive unit, too.
So many question marks.
Colton Sulley wrote the offensive “synergy” story for the Oklahoman and perhaps he wrote the headline or perhaps he didn’t.
Whatever, it was taken from a quote from Venables, yet once you read the whole story you’ll understand the aggregate of the quotes Venables offered about the offense painted a more balanced picture than the quite positive-sounding headline would have you believe.
How does the offense really look, and how will it perform?
Just more unanswered questions.
Again, bright side, Sulley did a lot of what Young does so frequently for the World, offering all kinds of other stuff, too, and by the end of the piece you’ve received a full briefing on the entire offense, which is strong journalism.
No, it can’t offer great insight into how the Sooner offense will fare, but it catches up on personnel and what people are saying, which is very often all any preseason story can do.
What else?
C.J. Coldon started four of 12 games at cornerback in 2022, his lone Sooner season after five years at Wyoming. He also received honorable mention All-Big 12 accolades and, yes, Keontez Lewis, a redshirt Sooner senior after spending the previous four years at UCLA, Wisconsin and Southern Illinois, making 21 catches between the Bruins and Badgers and 49 for the Salukis, is indeed his cousin.
Coldon, who now plays for Ottawa of the Canadian Football League, began posting about Lewis, who has starred in practice during media availability sessions, on social media.
Between what he saw for himself, Coldon’s social media posts and a phone interview of Coldon, Young, who wrote this piece, too, had a fine story to tell and told it well.
Still, one can’t help but wonder if a guy who caught 49 balls for a 4-8 team in the FCS Missouri Valley can possibly make an impact in the SEC.
Seems like a longshot, but just like Kanak at tight end, who knows?
So it goes.
In a world in which coaches hold back both their excitement and their gravest concerns — and the players are almost always excited — with limited opportunities for media to watch preparations for themselves, you get what you get.
In some cases, terrific and informative stories that give you a reason to watch, but in just about all of them, no real indication of what might happen once the games begin.
So read up, learn and hope.
It’s all you can do.
I’m resigned to another disappointing season. Maybe i will be pleasantly surprised.