The eight most interesting things we've already learned about Sooner football this week

Oklahoma kicks off against Illinois State on Saturday, here's more than you can imagine about coach Brent Venables' fourth Sooner team

Oklahoma football coach Brent Venables during his weekly pre-game press conference on Tuesday, five days before the season begins.

Monday afternoon, the Sooners released their depth chart.

Tuesday, both Brent Venables, head coach and defensive coordinator, and Ben Arbuckle, first-year offensive coordinator, met the media.

Monday, I laid out my thoughts on the Sooner season to be, offering a scenario in which 10 wins might become a possibility, yet five, six or seven to be more likely, eventually choosing seven as Oklahoma’s number over it’s 12-game regular season.

I’m stuck with my prediction, not that I’d change it after Tuesday, and still Venables and Arbuckle had many interesting things to say and rather than pull one thread from so much new knowledge, I’m thinking I’ll just pull as many as I can until I get tired.

I’d love to limit it to five, but more than five interesting threads have produced themselves and I’m at least here for most of them, even should that mean I won’t be done with this, in real time, any time soon.

So, prepare to be informed by stuff that’s been said, stuff that’s been announced, as well as some sharp analysis of what’s been said and what’s been announced.

1) Arbuckle down low

Ben Arbuckle, as he always has, but perhaps no Sooner offensive coordinator since Mike Leach in ’99 has, will be doing his game-day coordinating on the sideline rather than up high in the press box.

Most OC’s spend their game day getting a bird’s eye view in the press box, high above the field.

Arbuckle said he prefers to go low for the “immediate communication that he can have, “whether there’s an adjustment that needs to be made or something really good happened right there and [I’ve} got to tell them. ‘OK, this happened, we’ve got to keep doing this’ …

“And, for me personally, just being a quarterback guy, I like being able to look [starting quarterback] John [Mateer] in the eyes and talk to him. I think that’s really important.”

Arbuckle said his eyes in the sky will be senior offensive analyst John Kuceyeski, who came to OU from Washington State, just like Arbuckle and Mateer, and Joe Jon Finley, the tight ends coach who took over play-calling duties last season following the in-season firing of Seth Littrell.

Excuse me for cheerleading, but I love it.

I believe every coordinator should have no space between himself and his offense (or defense) and that means not hiding in the press box.

Additionally, I believe OU’s suffered offensively since ex-assistant Cale Gundy was shown the door. Since he left, there’s been no senior assistant with respect-grabbing-gravity to be the go-between between the OC up high and the players down low and the Sooners have paid for it.

That won’t be an issue with Mateer down low.

Great move.

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2) Player leadership

When you listen to coaches speak about their teams, year after year, fall camp after fall camp, spring after spring, you will hear them speak of team leaders.

But you may not hear it the way Venables spoke about it Tuesday.

Here it was:

“Rally proud of the leadership in this football team. Really a player-led group of guys. A lot of guys heavily invested and feel like they’ve got a lot to prove … And sometimes you’ve got to nurture that more than others and this has been a really natural group of guys that have come together.”

He didn’t mention players by name particularly or “seniors” generally. He remained broad because he sees it broadly.

You may recall a “player-led” team is just what coaches referenced on the way to the 2000 national championship and again, in retrospect, after it was won, so you know it was a real thing.

“And sometimes you’ve got to nurture that more than others,” is telling.

Were this a team in which player leadership must be nurtured more, Venables would not have broached the topic at all, especially in his own opening statement, which is when he said it.

3). Good news on the O-line

Very little was said about the offensive line on Tuesday and what little was said was player specific. The bigger news on the offensive line arrived Monday in the form of the depth chart.

I previously opined the starting offensive line to be this:

LT: Jacob Sexton
LG: Heath Ozaeta
C: Troy Everett
RG: Febechi Nwaiwu
RT: Logan Howland.

The thing about that grouping is each started at the same position last season. Injury played a role for some. Nonetheless, they logged starts at the same spots: 13 games for Nwaiwu, eight for Ozaeta, seven for Everett, six for Howland, while Sexton split time at left tackle and left guard before becoming injured.

Three signed with OU in the first place and none are first-season mercenaries, coming straight from the transfer portal into the starting lineup.

Cool, right?

Here, though, is how the official depth chart shook out:

LT: Michael Fasusi OR Jacob Sexton
LG: Heath Ozaeta OR Eddy Peerre-Louis
C: Troy Everett OR Jake Maikkula
RG: Febechi Nwaiwu
RT: Derek Simmons OR Logan Howland

If you thought you had five starting caliber offensive linemen prior to Monday, you now have nine, including Fasusi and Simmons first among equals over Sexton and Howland. Apparently, the claimed competitive depth has been real.

Yet another good sign.

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