Exponential payoff awaits Sooners
Stop LSU in Death Valley and it's a domino effect of good things for Oklahoma
Author’s note: Yet again, the pregame column a day before the game and, yes, it really is dizzying what the Sooners can still accomplish this season after suffering so many befuddling, embarrassing and impossible setbacks during this season. Also, if you’re reading this prior to 4:30 p.m. Friday, that’s the time the Sooner men gun take on Louisville for the Battle 4 Atlantis championship in the Bahamas on ESPN. Would you believe I’m entertaining the thought this season could be different for Porter Moser’s Sooners? I fear being wrong, but I think it may be. Enough of that, enjoy the column.
Brent Venables said something at his weekly press conference this week and it’s not clear if he was trying to project Sooner fortunes forward or mitigate them backward.
“I think last week [proves] … if we take care of the ball and do some simple basic things that winning requires,” he said, “there’s not a team that we can’t compete with and not a team that we can’t beat on our schedule.”
If looking back, it’s a reach. Sure, who knows what Oklahoma’s record would be if every game it played this season it finished even or ahead in the forced turnover count.
Still, both quarterbacks have been horribly shaky and inconsistent; the offensive line, until very recently, has been even worse; and given all the injuries … one way or another, the Sooners were never beating Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina and, probably, Ole Miss.
Looking back it doesn’t wash.
Looking forward, though, is a different matter.
Really, what topping Alabama last week proved was, via better coaching and far better offensive game plans, a season of experience, the right guy being handed the football and an offensive line that’s come miles and miles, OU’s finally become a team capable of not beating itself and playing with confidence, too, and, holy cow, has it put a far better season and offseason on the table than anybody might have dreamed only eight days ago.
Death Valley’s a hard place to play and a harder place to play at night and still, all signs point toward LSU absolutely being a team the Sooners can beat and, all things being equal, should beat.
The Tigers might be more talented, might have everything required to challenge for an SEC crown and reach the playoff, but it’s not happening this season because they’ve lost their mojo, that indefinable, intangible, metaphysical force capable of killing a team faster than turnovers and injuries.
Traveling home from Arkansas on Oct. 19, the Tigers had won six straight, including a dispatch of South Carolina in Columbia and Ole Miss, and the score in Fayetteville was a sharp 34-10.
Losing opening day to Lincoln Riley’s Trojans was regrettable, no doubt, but LSU appeared righted and on its way.
Instead, it fell to Texas, Alabama and Florida back-to-back-to-back and stopped the slide only by tightly eclipsing Vanderbilt 24-17 at home last week.
Of course OU can beat a team like that.
Everything points toward the combatants being ships passing in the night and only the Sooners heading the right direction. And should they prevail, it’s a river of positives splashing upon OU’s shore.
One, it takes a losing record off the table, which means taking John Blake era comparisons off the table and that’s huge.
Two, it should mean less players of note jumping into the transfer portal, because no longer would they be jumping off a sinking ship to do it.
Three, it should staunch recruiting losses, for OU would no longer be a losing program with a teetering head coach entering the 2025 season.
Four, it makes the Sooners a more attractive suitor when attempting plucking the best options out of the transfer portal, whoever they may be.
Five, it should add to OU’s NIL coffers, which makes it easier to retain the players it wants to retain, to secure the high school prospects it hopes to secure, to make a bigger and more positive dent in the portal.
Six, it doesn’t just make an 8-5 campaign possible, but makes it probable, given the way the Sooners will have been playing down the stretch entering their bowl.
Seven, if there’s an offensive coordinator Venables really wants but the dude’s on the fence given apparent question marks in the program, it would eliminate many of those question marks.
Not all at once, but winning solves everything.
OU won last week and it ought to win Saturday.
Do it and the horizon gets much brighter much faster.
Jackson Arnold has to throw the ball well for OU to be any kind of contender. Here's hoping.
I still don't care for moser as our basketball coach, but he has stumbled across a bevy of very talented players. Fears, Moore, Miles, etc could turn into quite a good team. Now if Moser can come up with a strategy to consistently get the ball across half court against a pressing team.
When was the last time any of us watched a team trailing by 17 points, four minutes left in the game, and in possession of the ball, choose to let the air out of the ball? For me, it was today as I watched OU run out the clock rather than make any concerted effort to score. I guess venables was afraid that his QB would throw an interception or drop another fumble and wind up losing by an even larger margin. Whatever, it was humiliating...almost as humiliating as the Sooners football team was all afternoon. From a lackluster defense to another zero output from the offense, this was just like this team has looked every Saturday except one this season: terrible! I recorded and watched ten games Saturday, and without exception the very worst QBs for each team were far, far superior to OU's Jackson Arnold. He is quite simply the bottom of the barrel in the NCAAF. We OU fans had the one highlight day against Alabama, and then it was back to the doldrums Saturday. Along with Arnold's blight, the play calling by Finley was as bad as anything ever seen by a team wearing the crimson and cream. Thank gawd this wretch of a regular season is over so we can now go finish everything off with another despicable bowl game loss. Venables should be finished but he won't be. Anybody else remember his previous exit from the Sooners? The years when he and co-DC Mike Stoops couldn't field a secondary as good as average high school teams. Well, he's done it again with this year's terrible, horrible excuse for defensive backs. Oh, but it doesn't end there for this defense. The stalwart D-Line looked as porous as any other team's mediocre group. Everything that went well against Bama was evidently totally disregarded, on both sides of the ball. For the umpteenth time this year, I call for arnold to be set free like a bug in the wind. Seriously, check out the QB play across the slate this weekend and you will find none as bad as our very own Jackson Arnold. Whew!