Hey. Oklahoma. The SEC is difficult.
Welcome back to Rock M Nation’s annual opponent preview series of the upcoming season. Each week we will break down one opponent from the schedule in chronological order. Given that rosters are ever fluid – and this is done by a hobbyist rather than a pro – there could be some errors in history and current roster makeup. All mistakes are done on purpose and with ill intent because I don’t like you or your team.
Catch up on previous 2025 opponent previews!
When Missouri and Texas A&M left for the SEC at the conclusion of the 2011 season, every program that was left behind in the XII conducted plenty of chirping about how the Tigers and the Aggies would never compete and be in for a rude awakening. Obviously, Missouri fans received the most ire from kansas folk but, strangely enough, a close second was the Oklahoma contingent. My personal favorite is how I read that Oklahoma would have entered into the SEC and competed immediately while they watched Missouri flounder in 2012.
My how the turntables….have…turned…
Oklahoma entered the SEC and promptly had its worse year in terms of SP+ since 2005, failing to win more than 3 conference victories since 1998 while enduring only its second losing season since 1999 (the previous losing season was also under current head coach Brent Venables, btw).
Of course, Sooner fans will immediately jump in and say that their entire receiving corps was injured and NO WONDER they “struggled” with out anyone to throw to and even their down year was a 6-6 record in the SEC before bowl season.
To that I ask this hypothetical Oklahoma fan: did you take into account that Mizzou had an injured starting quarterback and a musical chairs offensive line in 2012 before you started crowing about the Tigers’ demise? Oh, no, you didn’t? Curious!
Raise your hand if you remembered (or knew in the first place) that Oklahoma lost to Navy in the bowl game. This isn’t to shame them – we’re Missouri fans, we have no room to gloat about that distinctive blemish – but mostly just to highlight how far the Sooners fell. Navy beat Oklahoma and it barely registered on anyone’s radar!
Coaching Staff
Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
Brent Venables – 4th Year – 22-17 (12-14)
So what do we make of Head Coach Brent Venables as he enters into his fourth year at the helm of Sooner football?
On the one hand, he was an emergency hire after Lincoln Riley left, and its not like Riley was stockpiling elite defensive talent on his rosters so, maybe, the fact that Venables has an elite defense is worth some accolades.
But, also, the offense took a massive step back once system-guru Jeff Lebby took the Mississippi State job, and Bill Bedenbaugh’s vaunted offensive lines have been heavily regressing over the past four years among quarterback juggling.
This is a big year, then! It certainly seems like it, anyway, as Venables and friends pulled a lot of levers that are on-or-around the “panic zone” labeled zones:
- Fire your offensive coordinator and hire a young, system-exclusive, smaller-school OC? Check.
- Bring in a transfer quarterback who is familiar with said system? Check.
- Take over play calling responsibilities for the side of the ball the head coach knows best? Check.
- Hire a bunch of dudes with coordinator experience to be position coaches? Check.
For Venables’ sake I hope it works out. But until I see the final product – specifically the offense – on the field, I’m having a hard time thinking that the Sooners are going to improve all that much given the gauntlet of a schedule that they have.
Assistant Staff
As previously mentioned, last year’s offensive coordinator – Seth Littrell – was fired midway through the season, not even making it to the month of October. Given how Littrell and Venables go back a long ways and there’s probably a decent friendship there, that’s a tough move to pull…but, then again, the Oklahoma offense was posting some of its worse numbers since the pre-Bob Stoops era. So in comes Ben Arbuckle, a rocket-ship-career coordinator who has exploded on the stage with high-scoring offenses at Houston Christian, Western Kentucky, and – most recently – Washington State.
But that was the only offensive change. Everyone else stays the same while the defense adds two former coordinators to their linebacking corps as Venables takes over play calling responsibilities for the defense. I’m not sure why he felt so inclined to take over his best unit but, hey, it’s not my job on the line.
Roster Movement
Have a bad season as a blue blood, watch all the pretty recruiting stars just fly as far away from your nest as possible. That includes four quarterbacks, four backup running backs, five receivers, two tight ends, and five o-lineman. From a unit that ranked 75th in the nation. And a lot of those transfers had to transfer down to mid-tier programs or G5 teams. Yikes.
John Mateer and Jadyn Ott are the highlights of a transfer haul that I feel like most people have heard of, given the amount of interest those two garnered in the open portal window. Isaiah Sategna is a nice, experienced SEC receiving piece as well. But outside of that? Oklahoma really went hard after some transfers from…uh….one-win-and-just-transferred-up-from-FCS Kennesaw State? And McNeese? Arkansas-Pine Bluff? Pittsburg State and Western Carolina?
Look…there are good players in the FCS, no doubt about it. But why in the hell is BLUE BLOOD NATIONAL TITLE WINNING OKLAHOMA slumming in the FCS ranks for pass catchers? Did no single FBS receiver want to play with Mateer and Arbuckle? Talented, experienced receivers grow on trees and OU couldn’t find someone from, like, Wake Forest or Rutgers to jump on board? Whether the interest issue was budgetary or prestige based is unclear to an outsider like myself but I am absolutely flummoxed that the Sooners had to plum the FCS ranks to find competent receivers. What am I missing here?
The 17th-best recruiting class in the nation and 10th-best in the SEC features two massive offensive tackle recruits as well as a slew of potentially awesome defensive additions. Surprisingly the Sooners did not add a ton of offensive weapons from the high school ranks, but that’s most likely because the spent heavily on the portal to win now and then hope to figure out the offensive youth issue later.
Offense
If you’re my age you remember Missouri teams being tormented by Sam Bradford, DeMarco Murray, Mark Clayton, Ryan Broyles, Phil Loadholt, and all sorts of NFL stars who started in the Bob Stoops blue chip development machine.
So it’s stark to see just how far the Sooners fell in one single year, as the offense ranked 75th in the nation, with the 86th best rushing attack and 122nd-best passing offense.
They weren’t efficient (110th), they weren’t explosive (127th), could not finish drives with points (108th), and played a very reckless style of ball where they should have had so many turnovers than they did (107th in expected turnover margin).
So how much improvement can a new OC, new QB, and a bunch of FCS call-ups at wide receiver make to a unit that is this bad? Venables and friends are banking on “a ton” but they are going to be very new and unfamiliar with the surroundings while going up against a gauntlet of SEC defenses.
Quarterback
Photo by Alika Jenner/Getty Images
John Mateer rules. He plays with absolute reckless abandon, throwing himself around the field with maximum effort to even gain one extra yard, let alone a touchdown. He threw for over 3,000 yards last year with only 7 interceptions, while adding in over 1,000 yards in pre-sack rushing. He is as dynamic a playmaker as Diego Pavia but with fewer wins and better stats. I hate that he plays for OU but I do love watching him play as, not only is he good, but he always seems to be having the best time ever.
I hope he enjoys his time in Norman and loses to Mizzou and lives happily ever after.
Running Back
Photo by Thien-An Truong/ISI Photos/Getty Images
The OU rushing game sucked so returning nearly everyone only means so much. Luckily, they have Jadyn Ott who – if healthy WHICH IS A BIG IF GIVEN YA KNOW HIS ENTIRE HISTORY IN COLLEGE – is one of the best running backs in the country and absolutely hot to go:
O-T-T-T-O-G-O
We’ve got Jaydn Ott to go!#Calgorithm #FightForCalGameday #H1M #WhyNotCal pic.twitter.com/8D68f8pnjH— Callie Wake (@wokemobfootball) September 28, 2024
Receivers
Photo by John Bunch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
OU loses two of top three receivers, with one of those being former-FCS-tight-end-who-transferred-away in Bauer Sharp.
OU thought the Sharp experiment went so well that they went out and signed five FCS pass catchers to try to replicate the success again.
Now, they are good: Javonnie Gibson was one of the most prolific receivers last year, and former East St. Louis gadget guy Keontez Lewis was a threat on the ground and in the air for Southern Illinois last year. But can you reasonably expect all of them to level-up and produce at an SEC level? Absolutely not! And given the lack of experienced depth left on the roster…that’s kind of what they need to do. There are so many question marks with this group – even for an offensive whiz like Ben Arbuckle – that it’s hard to see this group actually succeed…until it does.
Offensive Line
Photo by George Walker/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
OU lost a bunch of starts and snaps along the offensive line starter group but a.) did have to rotate offensive linemen way more than they wanted to last year, and b.) do return most of the backups. They did hit the portal to add some more experienced bodies to the group but yanked a Western Carolina tackle in Derek Simmons and two Stanford guys in Jake Maikkula and Luke Baklenko. Maikkula was an excellent pass blocker and decent run blocker but Baklenko struggled in pass protection at his right tackle slot and wasn’t much better at run blocking. Maybe a change of scenery will magically make them better?
Defense
For as bad as the Oklahoma offense was, the defense was superb.
17th overall, 5th in efficiency, 2nd against the run, 7th in standard downs. Their one weakness is a weakness that seems fairly prevalent in these previews: explosive plays! 78th, to be exact, thanks to the 46th ranked passing defense. The defensive line was fairly havoc-y but the secondary absolutely was not (105th!) and if offense found a way to get a pass off it was usually being completed (60% completion rate allowed) for big yards (112th in passing explosiveness).
Interesting, then, that not only did they not portal in many guys on defense, but the guys the did bring in play on the line (linebacker Kendal Daniels* was sent on blitzes a ton last year). That signals to me that the secondary’s issues were youth related rather thank a skill issue, and/or they have the pieces they believe can succeed this year.
Regardless, the secondary loses one starter and adds nothing while the front seven adds three transfers to beef up the rotations of the unit that had the best havoc. A half reset at linebacker is really the only other question mark…oh, other than the fact that the head coach is now calling plays.
*Daniels is also an Oklahoma State player transferring to Oklahoma. I believe a rule should be in place that if you want to transfer to a rival school you must first spend a year in jail. But I digress.
So what does it all mean?
Of their twelve regular season opponent, nine rank in the preseason SP+ Top 25, including recent national champion Michigan, two-time Playoff participant Texas, the hottest team of 2024 in South Carolina, consistently difficult Ole Miss and Tennessee squads, and – oh yeah, Alabama and LSU. And they’re going to throw a bunch of FCS receivers and a brand new quarterback at that.
Yeah. Good luck.
The additions make sense, you would just prefer to see more proven skill and experience. So, at this point, Oklahoma is a mystery box where you can think that anything is in there but won’t find out until its actually opened.
For Missouri, I’m sure the guys leftover from the ‘24 Sooner squad would love to get one back on the Tigers, especially since they’ll be in Norman where the Tigers have not won a football game since a 1972 forfeit (if you want to count that) or the actual game played in 1966 that the Tigers won fair and square. Missouri has plenty of questions on its own headed into this season but everyone should know who they are by the time the game kicks off on November 22nd.
Does the Eli Drinkwitz culture of brotherhood and close games luck carry on? Or does Brent Venables finally get this thing turned around with the help of a bunch of guys he didn’t want in the first place?