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It had to end that way.
The game, the season, the everything. Oklahoma’s season had to come to an end with some sort of a display of offensive ineptitude. The fact that it came via a sack on an all-or-nothing 2-point conversion in a Friday afternoon bowl game against a service academy felt right for an offense that felt wrong all year.
Don’t take that as disrespect to Navy, who clawed back to win the Armed Forces Bowl after it fell behind by 2 touchdowns and got the gift of an unblocked edge-rusher on that 2-point conversion attempt. Instead, take that as disrespect to the 2024 version of the OU offense.
To be fair, the version of the 2024 Sooners offense were a bit different than the unit that took the field on Friday. The transfer portal claimed 25 players, including basically the entire non-freshmen elements of the receiver room, outside of Deion Burks … who didn’t play on Friday. An offense that had its top 5 receivers out by late-September was well-versed in finding new targets. It was also well-versed in finding new offensive line combinations, which OU had to do on 8 occasions this year.
But the all-too-familiar script was watching a unit with zero identity attempt to figure it out against a more-disciplined team. That repeated itself.
How does one blow a 14-0 lead to a service academy? Like, besides allowing the longest run in the school’s history to tie it up? Well, 8 consecutive scoreless drives for the OU offense did the trick.
Some of that fell on Michael Hawkins Jr., who was given the start after Jackson Arnold transferred to Auburn. And just as he did when he replaced Arnold in the middle of the Tennessee game, Hawkins initially provided some juice. He led a scoring drive on the first possession of the game, and his touchdown pass late in the 1st quarter was the most impressive play of his young career.
The problem was that just like in the regular season when Hawkins lost the job in the midst of a disastrous start against South Carolina, OU couldn’t tie its shoes on offense . Quick outs were drops or inaccurate throws, running lanes were plugged and field goals were pipe dreams. It’s a tough trio to overcome, yet Brent Venables still had faith in his offense to do that with that 2-point conversion attempt.
But enough about that.
Enough about this Oklahoma offense. It was a mess. It almost felt disrespectful to the illustrious history of OU quarterbacks to show images of them after coming back from a commercial break. The likes of Josh Heupel, Jason White, Sam Bradford, Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray might’ve set a nearly impossible standard to live up to, but this OU offense was just fighting an uphill battle to reach mediocrity. Outside of a night against Alabama, watching the Sooners offense was a painful exercise. Scoring 16.5 points/game vs. SEC teams (15th) and averaging 4.2 yards/play (16th) wasn’t what Venables envisioned in his first year in the conference.
Wait. I promised I’d move on from the 2024 version of the OU offense.
Venables’ attempt to do that in a pivotal 2025 season was hiring 29-year-old OC Ben Arbuckle to run his offense after Seth Littrell was fired following that aforementioned South Carolina disaster in October. Arbuckle was on the sidelines on Friday as OU’s quarterbacks coach. It’s hard to imagine that what he saw from Hawkins after the first quarter will give him a leg up against Washington State transfer QB John Mateer, who had the best QB rating of any FBS quarterback in November.
The good news for Oklahoma is that there’s simply no way that it’ll repeat the 2024 story of having all 5 top receivers out by late September. Burks’ return for 2025 was huge, though he’ll obviously have to stay healthy to turn things around. And with pass-catcher losses like Nic Anderson (LSU), Bauer Sharp (LSU) Jalil Farooq (Maryland) and Brenen Thompson (Mississippi State), Burks will have some entirely new surroundings.
Shoot, Oklahoma just played a bowl game in which it had 1 active player with at least 100 receiving yards on the season. It was true freshman Jacob Jordan, who entered the day with 207 yards and 1 touchdown. He was 1 of 4 OU wide receivers who caught a pass on Friday, all of whom were freshmen. Not ideal.
None of this Oklahoma offense was ideal. A unit that entered the year with confidence that it would be fine without Dillon Gabriel and Jeff Lebby turned into a group that looked more like Oklahoma Baptist by season’s end (that only plays because Oklahoma Baptist went 2-9 at the Division II level and it failed to eclipse 21 points in its final 3 games).
Venables’ time in Norman will be defined by whether he can turn around that historically woeful OU offense. Period. It’ll be a distant memory that he signed an extension that was announced in June, a week ahead of OU’s first day in the SEC. OU’s first season in the SEC was one to forget. Venables became the second OU coach in the last 100 years to suffer multiple losing seasons during his tenure. The last one to do so was the late John Blake, who preceded the Bob Stoops era.
Blake only got 3 seasons. Venables is fortunate enough to get a Year 4, despite his 22-17 record. His recruiting efforts and defensive improvements played a big part in that, as did OU’s desire to win the Lincoln Riley breakup. How fitting it was that both programs capped off 6-6 regular seasons in their new conferences.
Friday’s result was fitting, and frustratingly familiar for Venables. The only solace he could take from watching that failed 2-point conversion attempt was obvious.
At least nobody will have to watch that OU offense ever again.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
