The Mind of Mike is a crazy place. Are my thoughts on the Oklahoma mess crazy too? Maybe not.
Let’s just get down to it. Who’s at fault? Is it Lincoln Riley or is it Brent Venables? It’s a little of both but I’ll have the answer at the end here.
Oklahoma football is at an embarrassing low. A traditionally great program, the Sooners were destroyed by TCU 55-24 a couple of weeks ago in what could be argued as a top-five loss in program history. The game wasn’t even as close as the score indicated and that’s scary. But a week later, a 49-0 drubbing by Texas in the Red River Showdown surpassed that. We are now at an all-time low for OU football. Okay, maybe not all time as the John Blake years in 1996, 1997, and 1998 are still in some of our minds, but you get the picture. With a loss to Kansas State the week before TCU, Oklahoma is 0-3 in conference play and the worst team in the Big 12. And it’s not even close after West Virginia’s win over Baylor Thursday night.
So let’s hand out blame. Let’s start with Lincoln Riley. This team was showing signs of regression in 2021 before he left as they lost to Baylor and Oklahoma State but let’s be real. They were still good, very good. Baylor and Oklahoma State were ranked teams. The offense was fine and promising and the defense was the same, erratic. But Riley flirted with LSU and took the USC job. He also took many of his coaches, star quarterback Caleb Williams and promising young players like Mario Williams. Meanwhile, players like Jadon Haselwood (Arkansas), Spencer Rattler and Austin Stogner (both South Carolina) took off as well. There was a crater-sized hole of talent left for the new coach. There are no ways to mince words. Riley screwed OU and screwed them hard.
But what about new coach Brent Venables? He didn’t inherit a horrible roster. Yes, there was a loss of talent but you could argue this roster has better overall players than Kansas State, TCU, and even Texas. And certainly more than Kansas but Lance Leipold is winning and Venables is not. And Venables was supposed to fix the defense and here we are giving up 41 to Kansas State, 55 to TCU, and 49 to Texas. The defense looks as bad as it ever has and Venables, a defensive genius, didn’t have a lot of defections from that side of the ball and had spring and fall to improve this unit. He did not.
And OU gambled at the QB position with Dillon Gabriel who was damaged goods after a great 2020 season but regression and injury in 2021 and Davis Beville who was vastly over ranked out of high school. Gabriel came in from a commitment to UCLA after leaving UCF and Beville came from Pitt and neither was the solution. Venables and offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby missed out in the portal at QB which will doom an offense from the start especially as you lose QB1 and QB2 to the same portal.
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So who’s to blame? It comes down to Riley for me as he left this program in disarray and stole some of their best players while helping to drive some others away with his defection. Venables has made his mistakes and could be way over his head here as we stare another John Blake run at OU in the face, but it’s Riley that deserves the blame. He had every right to take a job he deemed better, that’s the free market, but he was given a chance to succeed Bob Stoops and trusted with the keys to a Lamborghini and he raced off to sunny LA with it instead of driving it with pride around Norman. OU fans were butthurt badly when Riley bolted. They should be even more hurt now as their program has become fodder for national college football jokes.
