By Rock Westfall
When Lincoln Riley was the head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners, his offense was among the nation’s elite. Riley sent two quarterbacks, Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray to New York to pick up the Heisman Trophy with a third, Jalen Hurts, a near miss at the final table. With such success, Oklahoma was a regular Big 12 champion and College Football Playoff participant. But Riley’s Sooners could never finish. The Best example was in 2019 when they were lit up 63-28 in the Peach Bowl CFP game against eventual national champion LSU. Lincoln Riley’s Oklahoma squads were half of a team: all offense and no defense.
Riley’s successor, Brent Venables, also has half a team this year. While the career defensive mastermind has a good stop unit at Oklahoma, he does not have an offense to complement it. After Saturday’s loss to Tennessee, Venables threw open competition for the starting quarterback job. In his third year as OU head coach and leading Oklahoma in its maiden voyage in the SEC, Venables has a quarterback controversy as the heart of the conference schedule begins.
Oklahoma fans are losing faith fast. Brent Venables is morphing into Lincoln Riley inversed.
The dude isn’t a head coach. Oklahoma hired a guy that was an assistant for almost 30 years and expected him to perform at a Bob Stoops level. It’s laughable and by seasons end fans won’t be calling for Michael Hawkins. They’ll be calling for Brent Venables to be fired. https://t.co/cNESoVTRal
— WittWicky (@RobbyUT_2006) September 22, 2024
Venables Panic Pick of Jackson Arnold Becomes a Disaster
Last year, quarterback Dillon Gabriel led the Sooners to a 10-2 record and lit up enemy defenses for a 172.0 QBR with 3660 yards passing, 9.5 yards per attempt, and a 30/6 TD/INT ratio. Yet that was not good enough for Venables.
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Despite all of Gabriel’s success, Brent Venables panicked. He cowered and caved to the fear of losing prized 5-star recruit and backup quarterback Jackson Arnold to the transfer portal if Arnold was forced into backing up Gabriel for another long season. The decision has become a catastrophe.
Gabriel has a 186.8 QBR at Oregon with 9.7 yards per attempt, 914 yards, and a 6/0 TD/INT ratio. In comparison, Arnold has a pedestrian 120.9 QBR, a putrid 5.3 yards per attempt, and a 7/3 TD/INT ratio.
Arnold was pulled from the Tennessee debacle before the first half ended. His QBR for the game was 59.6 with 7-16 for 54 yards and a pick. On the biggest stage of his career, Arnold flopped. But there were warning signs that the implosion was coming. In Oklahoma’s previous three games against Temple, Houston, and Tulane, the offense was more off than on and was not explosive against Tulane and Houston. The OU offense bore no resemblance to last year’s prolific unit.
Venables blinked, kicking Gabriel to the curb. Now, he has blinked again because of his public lack of confidence in Arnold, who will be benched in favor of true freshman Michael Hawkins Jr. for the starting job going forward.
The moment Jackson Arnold mentally hit the portal… pic.twitter.com/pFbZUWVEny
— Amejecca 🇺🇸🏴 (@FRD68) September 22, 2024
Hawkins Does Enough to Gain a Shot
It took a while, but Hawkins improved as the Tennessee game wore on, and he was certainly better than Arnold. Hawkins finished 11-18 for 132 yards and a 141 QBR. Hawkins led two TD drives in the 4th quarter. He also added 22 rushing yards.
“This kid is your quarterback next week,” ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit said on the ESPN broadcast. “This kid has done enough in these handful of series in the second half.”
Brent Venables concurred.
“I love (Hawkins),” head coach Brent Venables said. “He’s confident, he’s loose in the right ways, the moment’s not going to overwhelm him even though he’s a young guy.”
Still, Venables was not pleased with offensive coordinator Seth Littrell’s offense overall and fans are calling for Littrell’s head.
“It’s very frustrating,” Venables said about the offensive performance. “There’s just some bad football. Guys getting beat and not winning their matchups, I don’t like that at all. You’ve got to go back and watch it.”
On the QB controversy, Venables added his criteria: “Who’s the most consistent (and) can execute the basics of our offense consistently,” Venables said. “It’s not real complicated. Then you’ve got to get in the game and perform too.”
Last June, athletic director Joe Castiglione gave Venables a new six-year deal. I pointed out that it was a masterstroke by Oklahoma because it would keep a lid on hot-seat talk if Oklahoma struggled this year.
But Oklahoma has plenty of rich boosters and of course SEC mad money.
Brent Venables is on the clock.
Brent Venables shares that Jackson Arnold has been benched per @SoonerScoop
Michael Hawkins starts Saturday at Auburn
— Unnecessary Roughness (@UnnecRoughness) September 24, 2024
