It is Brent Venables.
It is also Ben Arbuckle.
It is also John Mateer.
Not long ago, it was Venables, Seth Littrell and Jackson Arnold.
Stop me if you’re detecting a pattern.
There’s really no other way to look at following 11th-ranked Oklahoma’s 17-10 loss at Michigan’s Big House on Saturday.
Again, the Sooners did nothing in the ground game. Again, Mateer threw the ball poorly, barely completing 50 percent of his passes.
As for the aforementioned trio, all three were so utterly lost on OU’s final possession of the first half, even had the Sooners won the game, even had they played well otherwise, that one failure alone would have been enough to ask if they even know what they’re trying to do.
“Really disappointed in how things shaped up,” Venables said. “Lost a turnover margin, didn’t tackle great in the first half, love to get a call back on the long touchdown run [Michigan quarterback Bryce] Underwood had. They got us in a bad call, and you know we lost the turnover margin two nothing.
“Seemed like we were penned up inside our own 5-yard line the whole day … Thought our guys came out in the second half and really got into a really good rhythm. John [Mateer], I think, hit his first nine passes in the second half.”
Now, in the second paragraph of that long quote, you might have noticed I chopped a few words. That’s what the ellipsis, the three dots, is for.
So, if you’re scoring at home, after his offense scored 10 points, gained fewer than 300 yards from scrimmage, averaged just 3.4 yards per carry and completed 17 of 33 passes for less than 200 yards, the Sooner head coach talked for a long time about any number of things — turnover margin, tackling, a call he made from the sideline, special teams, turnover margin again — before ever mentioning his offense and when he finally did it was complimentary on a day it sucked.
What game is he watching?
“I thought John did some really good things with both his arms and legs, and did a good job managing the game,” Venables later added.
Good grief.
“What did I think of John’s play,” Arbuckle said, repeating the question. “I thought maybe a little bit shaky early. Really came out and responded [in] the second half. I think he completed the first nine or 10 of his passes.
“And then there late in the game, I mean, just some things where he had to hit some chunk balls, try and move the ball down the field, and I think two or three of them kind of sailed on him a little bit.”
No points in the first half, but maybe a little bit shaky? Two or three of them kind of sailed on him?
Really?
Arbuckle called the first half like he had no confidence in Mateer. He called the last drive of the first half like he had even less. And he answered questions about him like he had no confidence he could handle the truth.
“I missed a lot of throws that I normally don’t miss,” Mateer said.
He certainly missed a lot of throws he needed to make, and made nearly none when it really, really mattered.
It’s true, Mateer completed five straight on OU’s first drive of the second half to take the Sooners 90 yards in eight plays, Mackenzie Alleyne grabbing a 22-yard score that brought OU within 10-7.
It’s also true he completed his next four tosses, extending into the fourth quarter, leading to a 34-yard field goal from Tate Sandell that tied the game with 11:51 remaining.
The rest was brutal.
Over the Sooners’ final three drives, Mateer completed 1 of 8 for three yards, seemingly every miss a bad throw, and an interception that set the Wolverines up at OU’s 6-yard line, two plays after which they scored what would stand up as the game-winning touchdown.
Of course, it wasn’t just Mateer.
Some combination of Arbuckle and Venables conspired to embarrass the whole program at the end of the first half.
OU got the ball, down 10-0 with 2:27 to do something about a horrendous offensive first half.
Let me tell you about it.
Mateer completed three of four passes for 7, 6 and 3 yards.
It’s a two-minute offense, so why not take a shot down the field? Unless, oh, yeah, the quarterback can’t complete balls down the field.
But he worked with Sam Bradford in the offseason, received counsel from Terry Bradshaw and turned heads at the Manning Passing Academy?
Maybe, but ball and frightened play-calling don’t lie.
Still, OU found itself facing second-and-7 at the Michigan 45 with two timeouts still in its pocket. From there, Mateer first threw incomplete to Xavier Robinson behind the line of scrimmage.
Then, wait, this can’t be right … a quarterback draw … for two yards … forcing a punt … and they kept both their timeouts?
Arbuckle can’t call that play.
Venables can’t let it be called.
Mateer might want to get in the way of it, too.
“I don’t know what they’re doing here,” said Joel Klatt, speaking for a college football nation as he provided analysis alongside play-by-play man Gus Johnson.
Now, everything should be on the table.
From making Kevin Wilson your new play-caller, perhaps your new offensive coordinator; from giving up on Mateer as a frequent passer and making him a run-first quarterback; from rolling out another quarterback altogether.
Perhaps none of it could happen until a poor performance at Georgia ups the pressure. Then again, if moves must be made, why not do it before facing New Mexico? Would you rather wait until visiting the Bulldogs or meeting Texas at the Cotton Bowl?
In summary:
It is Venables.
It is Arbuckle.
It is Mateer.
For a second straight season, it’s not working.
We’ve seen this movie before and it always ends the same.
Perhaps the cast of characters needs some changing.
Oklahoma is trapped in a forever “almost good enough” vacuum. Enough talent to tease you, enough flashes to keep selling hope, enough mistakes to keep losing games that matter. 17–10 at Michigan isn’t a catastrophe. It’s worse: it’s painfully familiar.
# 90 kicked that O line butt all day, Arbuckle couldn’t call a winning drive if we paid him (oh wait, we do, a lot!) and V’s fearsome D line…nah. You’re right Clay, time for some serious change but it sure will be expensive if it’s Venables, but we know it won’t be.