Brent Venables keeps running into the same Red River wall, and this year’s trip to Dallas comes with the same old pressure points for Oklahoma: shaky quarterback play, a sputtering run game and a Texas team sitting at No. 1 for the second time in three years.
Venables is 1-3 against Texas, and the Sooners’ lone touchdown-scoring trip to the Cotton Bowl under him came in the 34-30 win three years ago, when Dillon Gabriel authored the comeback. That was also the only one of those games in which Oklahoma showed up with a settled quarterback situation.
Gabriel was out with a concussion in ’22. In ’24, true freshman Michael Hawkins made his second career start against a top-five, CFP-bound Texas team.
Last year, John Mateer was still dealing with the effects of thumb surgery. Now Mateer is healthy physically, but he’s also among the national leaders with six turnovers.
That matters in a game like this. Venables and Ben Arbuckle both pointed out this week that the team that usually protects the ball and wins the rushing battle wins the Red River Rivalry.
Oklahoma’s defense has enough talent and discipline to force mistakes and slow Texas on the ground, but the Sooners’ own offense has been a mess. Their rushing attack is one of the worst in the country, and Mateer’s turnovers have been costly enough to put the entire unit in danger of self-destructing.
The path for Oklahoma is pretty clear: it has to win an ugly game. That’s possible, because Texas hasn’t exactly been a juggernaut on offense.
Arch Manning is still developing, and the Longhorns are averaging only 3.6 yards per carry. But Oklahoma hasn’t shown nearly enough consistency to suggest it can finally clean up its own problems against a defense like Texas’.
The Sooners are going to have to put the ball in Mateer’s hands a lot just to move it, and that gives him more chances to make another damaging mistake.
If there’s a reason to think this stays close, it’s the setting. Weird things happen at the Cotton Bowl.
Oklahoma’s defense is good, even if it isn’t as deep as last year’s group, and the Sooners should hang around for a while. Mateer also won’t be as bad as he was against Georgia, special teams should help with at least one big play, and Texas hasn’t been sharp enough to assume it can steamroll anybody.
Hollywood Smothers gives the Longhorns another possible playmaker as well, and that only adds to the pressure on an OU defense that may have to carry too much for too long.
Michael Fasusi’s availability is another piece of the equation, and if he doesn’t play, that only makes the offensive line issue harder to manage. Oklahoma’s front has struggled all season, and Mateer has piled up mistake after mistake behind it.
But the bottom line is hard to ignore. Texas has more answers, and eventually those answers tend to show up in this rivalry.
Manning finds a key touchdown, the Longhorns capitalize on a turnover and Oklahoma’s defense fades late. The Sooners can keep it competitive in the first half, but a turnover-prone offense won’t be able to sustain that start.
Texas pulls away after halftime, and Oklahoma is left with its third straight Red River loss, and a fourth in five years, while trying to salvage some momentum for the rest of the season.
In Other News...
Sooners Get Crucial Red River Boost But One Concern Still Looms
Oklahoma got a needed lift on the availability front before its Red River Rivalry meeting with Texas, with four players shifting from questionable to probable on the updated report. The biggest near-term help comes on defense, where Michael Boganowski and Cole Sullivan are expected back, giving the Sooners a little more depth and flexibility as they brace for one of the seasons most important games.
The offensive line, though, still carries an obvious concern. Starting left tackle Michael Fasusi remains doubtful, and that leaves a major question hanging over a unit that will need to hold up against Texas with several others already ruled out, including Fred Hinton, Taylor Heim, Trell Harris, Xavier Robinson, and Jacobe Johnson. For Oklahoma, the return of a few key defenders helps, but the availability picture is still far from clean where it matters most. [Read more 🡒]
Oklahoma's Red River Upset Bid Comes Down To One Familiar Problem
The Sooners head into the Red River showdown with Texas carrying the kind of matchup questions that can swing a rivalry game in a hurry. Left tackle Ryan Fodje will be one of the first lines of defense against edge rusher Colin Simmons, while quarterback John Mateer remains the player who most shapes Oklahomas ceiling. If the Sooners are going to make this a live upset attempt, they need their protection to hold up and their passing game to find a rhythm.
Mateers turnover history has already shown how quickly Oklahomas offense can tilt one way or the other, and that looms especially large against a Texas team built to punish mistakes. Isaiah Sategna offers the kind of speed and playmaking that could stress the Longhorns secondary, but Oklahomas chances still seem tied to whether its quarterback can keep the ball out of harms way long enough for that threat to matter. The prediction work around this game points back to the same familiar issue for the Sooners, one that has a habit of deciding their biggest nights. [Read more 🡒]
Oklahoma's Brent Venables Debate Comes With A Massive Catch
Brent Venables remains a central talking point in Norman as Oklahoma works through a 2-2 start to the 2026 season, and the conversation is shaped as much by his contract as by the record. Venables signed a six-year extension in August 2026 that keeps him under contract through the 2031 season, with an annual salary of $10.5 million, a deal that underscores how heavily the Sooners are invested in the direction of the program.
Venables is now 34-22 overall at Oklahoma, a run that includes two losing seasons and two 10-win seasons, which helps explain why the debate around his future can feel so complicated. The real catch is financial: his buyout is believed to sit somewhere in the $55 million to $60 million range, though the exact figure is not clear, making any serious discussion about change a much bigger decision than a simple football judgment. [Read more 🡒]