Jason Witten with a game ball in the Sooner locker room after defeating Georgia Saturday night in Gainesville. (OU Athletics Photo)

Imagine how much better Oklahoma might be had its offensive line not been a god awful bandaged up mess, as it’s tended to be ever since Brent Venables and Bill Bedenbaugh found themselves on the same staff.

Imagine how much better the Sooners might be if John Mateer quit running the ball like a Secret Service agent protecting the president, head on a swivel, looking for snipers, and simply galloped into the open space in front of him.

Imagine how much better OU might be had its previous offensive coordinator, Ben Arbuckle, realized the depth of the Sooner offense, rather than limit it to Mateer, Isaiah Sategna, Rocky Beers and whoever the running back thrown in his lap happened to be.

Imagine how much better the season might be going if Venables had the inspiration to jettison Arbuckle after the Sooners turned in their second straight pathetic offensive performance against New Mexico, following Michigan, and moved Jason Witten into Arbuckle’s slot then.

Imagine that.

Rather than four losses … two?

Perhaps the Mateer observation is mine alone, but the other stuff?

If you’ve been watching, and haven’t become blinded by your wish Venables become the golden child even if it takes forever for him to get there, you’ve got to be wondering, too.

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Saturday night in Gainesville, the Sooners looked more like a real team than any other time this season, beating 24th-ranked Florida 23-7 in The Swamp, all of it on the night Witten began his offensive coordinating career and, I’ve got to tell you, his ascendancy made all the difference in the world.

All season, the Sooners had been allergic to the red zone, but on this night they reached inside the Gator 20 three times and close enough to kick a field goal two other times.

All season long it had been field goals rather than touchdowns, OU entering 137th of 138 FBS programs at turning red zone entries into TDs, but Saturday it was two-of-three and likely three-of-three had it needed to be, looking at first-and-goal from the 7, but playing for a field goal with two minutes remaining, up 20-7, was the right move.

The 10-year-old fan in me I can’t kill is excited and happy about the all-of-a-sudden developments with three games remaining in the regular season.

The 10-year-old fan in me I can’t kill and the non-partisan sportswriter I’ve become since beginning at the Trinitonian 38 years ago are both even more flabbergasted by Venables’ offensive disinterest since arrival, taking the Sooners where it’s taken them until Monday, when Arbuckle got the boot.

You should be, too.

Because it never had to be this bad in the first place.

Mateer completed 21 of 33 passes for two scores and 207 yards without an interception, but Witten was the star.

By the time the first quarter was over, not only did OU lead 3-0 and find itself in the middle of its first 80-plus-yard drive, one that would make it 10-0 9:42 before the half, but Mateer had already completed passes to four different receivers in Parker Livingstone, Jacob Jordan, Beers and Elijah Thomas.

And on the Sooners’ seventh snap of the second quarter, Manny Choice joined the brigade. And five snaps after that, it was Hayden Hansen, who came to OU from Florida, for a touchdown.

Witten was painting with a bigger palette than Arbuckle — who, in retrospect, may have been far too invested in his quarterback’s success than the offense that quarterback ran — ever dreamed of.

Before leaving Norman, Witten appeared to quickly have everybody’s attention.

“I told the players in [our] first meeting … ‘Hey, look, this is not ideal but, ultimately, we haven’t coached very well and, ultimately, we haven’t gotten the results we’ve wanted,’” he said. “And so I told them what they could expect from me.

“Met with the offensive staff and told them, ‘Hey, listen, if you don’t want to be here, I understand that. Go see coach Venables. But here’s what we’re going to do.’”

You think Arbuckle ever owned an offensive staff meeting as entirely as Witten on his first try?

By the end of it, Mateer had hit Beers four times, Jordan four times, Sategna four times and Choice three times.

We’d heard OU was deep at receiver but proving it required throwing to several targets and finally it happened.

As for that second-quarter drive that finished with the ball in Hansen’s hands in the end zone? It was a 15-play, 84-yard slog taking 7:11 off the clock and still it was nothing like the drive that mostly iced the game.

That one went 89 yards over 20 plays, taking an insane 12:45 off the clock, the last snap turning into a 6-yard touchdown caught by Sategna in the front right corner of the end zone with 4:56 remaining.

Marches like that are not ideal.

They put interceptions and fumbles on the table and if they don’t finish with points, you’ve wasted most of a quarter. But you have to do what you have to do and after two third-quarter drives that went nowhere fast, leading only 10-7, the Sooners needed a drive to go somewhere even if it was slow.

It was really slow, overcoming first-and-20 following a rotten offensive pass interference call against Livingstone, and converting third down six times.

The defense was great, allowing a single touchdown and just 203 Gator yards, but OU’s best defender was Witten, too.

Aided by those cross-country drives, OU led time of possession 37:50 to 22:10 and it’s hard to score when you don’t have the ball.

“In all the years I’ve been around football,” Witten said, “maybe the greatest moment I’ve had.”

Easy, man.
Save something for next week.

But it was pretty great.
Too bad it took what it took to get there.

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Oklahoma Columnist, by Clay Horning

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