OU football is starting to feel like a team with two very different futures, and somehow both are believable.
One path leads to 10 wins and another College Football Playoff run. The other ends at 6-6, with the whole season looking a lot like last year’s mess. That’s the tension hanging over Norman right now, because the Sooners have enough of the same DNA from 2024 and 2025 to make either outcome feel plausible.
The offense is the obvious problem. John Mateer hasn’t been sharp, the offensive line is banged up and not imposing even when healthy, the receivers are thin beyond Isaiah Sategna III, and the running back room still doesn’t have a true headliner.
The tight ends, meanwhile, have been even less productive. It’s a rough group, and the New Mexico game did nothing to soften that reality.
And yet the 2025 version of this program still found a way to win 10 games and reach the College Football Playoff despite a struggling offense. Mateer wasn’t great then either, but the defense was strong enough to carry the load. That’s why the 2026 defense has to be viewed through the same lens: if the offense keeps sputtering, can the defense drag this team where it wants to go again?
At the same time, the resemblance to 2024 is hard to ignore. That team also leaned on a sturdy defense while the offense drifted.
The numbers tell the story plainly: OU ranked 113th in total offense in 2024, 92nd in 2025 and 115th in 2026. On defense, the Sooners finished 19th in 2024, sixth in 2025 and ninth in 2026.
The pattern is obvious enough to make the season feel familiar.
Brent Venables has already alternated between six wins and 10 wins in each of his first four seasons as coach. So the question isn’t whether OU has been in both places before.
It has. The real question is which version of the Sooners this team is destined to become.
That brings the focus back to the offensive coordinator spot. Seth Littrell lasted seven games in 2024 before being fired in the middle of his first season.
Ben Arbuckle, his replacement, is now the one under pressure. The offense has stalled, Mateer hasn’t taken a step forward, and Arbuckle has become a target in Norman because he carries the title and the paycheck, even if the problems are broader than one coach.
A midseason change doesn’t sound like the right move, but if the Sooners keep failing to get into the red zone, let alone the end zone, some kind of change feels inevitable later on.
The hire itself made sense when OU made it in December 2024. Arbuckle had the buzz of a rising offensive mind, and the Sooners also believed bringing him in would help secure John Mateer from Washington State. At the time, the package deal looked like a major win.
Looking back now, it’s natural to wonder who else was in the mix. Buster Faulkner was the biggest what-if.
He was at Georgia Tech then and is now at Florida under first-year coach Jon Sumrall. Joe Craddock, who was Tulane’s offensive coordinator under Sumrall, is also on that Florida staff now as quarterbacks coach.
Brennan Marion, another name that had real heat, ended up at Colorado after a year as Sacramento State’s head coach, and the Buffaloes just managed seven points in a blowout loss to Northwestern. Dan Mullen was briefly part of the conversation too, but he passed on a coordinator job and eventually surfaced as UNLV’s head coach.
The Rebels won 10 games a year ago, and Mullen is now working with Jackson Arnold in Las Vegas.
There’s also been plenty of former Sooners and Cowboys making noise in the NFL. Jalen Redmond, the defensive lineman from Midwest City, was a difference-maker for Minnesota in a 9-3 win over the Bears.
Caleb Williams left the game with an injury in the fourth quarter, but the Bears couldn’t block Redmond no matter who was at quarterback. The former Sooner, who played at OU from 2018-22, forced a Bears fumble at the 1-yard line in the third quarter and has developed into a standout after going undrafted and spending a season in the UFL.
On the Cowboys side, Chuba Hubbard keeps showing up. The former OSU running back had 12 carries for 53 yards in Carolina’s blowout of Atlanta and scored a touchdown catch for the second straight week.
As for the games ahead, OU goes to Georgia as a 14-point underdog, and that line feels a little too steep. The Bulldogs have been piling up points against Tennessee State, Western Kentucky and Arkansas, but this is a much tougher test.
OU’s offense has been ugly, but the defense is still good enough to keep things respectable. Georgia 19, OU 13 feels like a game where one Sooners touchdown might be enough to stay inside the number.
That would make the Sooners 2-1 straight up and 2-1 against the spread on the season.
Oklahoma State heads to West Virginia as a 2-point underdog, and that one looks even trickier. A neutral field might make it a pick’em, but Morgantown at night is a different animal.
Michael Hawkins Jr. appears to fit Rich Rodriguez’s offense well, and the Cowboys haven’t faced a run-first quarterback like him. OSU’s defense has been better than expected, but the Mountaineers still get the edge at home.
West Virginia 34, OSU 31 would extend the Cowboys’ Big 12 losing streak to 20 games.
That would leave OSU at 2-1 straight up and 1-2 against the spread.
In Other News...
Venables Just Put Oklahomas Biggest Georgia Fear Into Focus
Brent Venables spent part of the buildup to Georgia doing what Oklahoma coaches have had to do all season: balancing respect for a loaded opponent with a hard look in the mirror. Georgias defense is the obvious headliner, but Venables also pointed to quarterback Gunnar Stockton as part of the challenge, a reminder that this matchup asks for more than just clean reads and a steady plan. For Oklahoma, the conversation quickly turns to the offense, where turnovers and shaky line play have too often put the Sooners in difficult spots.
Venables also said defensive lineman David Stone is uncertain because of a knee injury, though he sounded comfortable with the depth up front if the Sooners need to lean on it. The larger issue, as he framed it, is not just matching Georgia snap for snap but trimming away the self-inflicted errors that have made Oklahomas margin so thin. Against a team like this, the Sooners do not need a perfect night, but they probably need a much cleaner one. [Read more 🡒]
Georgias First SEC Clash With Oklahoma Carries One Intriguing Twist
No. 2 Georgia is set to host Oklahoma in the programs first regular-season meeting, a matchup that brings plenty of SEC familiarity and just enough unfamiliarity to make it interesting. Georgia is unbeaten at 3-0, Oklahoma comes in at 2-1, and both coaches spent the buildup acknowledging the other sides strengths, with Kirby Smart praising the Sooners defense and Brent Venables pointing to the challenge posed by Georgia senior quarterback Gunner Stockton.
For Oklahoma, the bigger question remains on its own side of the ball, where the offense has been searching for steadier production and quarterback John Mateer still needs to take a step forward. The Sooners could also be monitoring defensive tackle David Stone, whose availability is uncertain because of a knee injury, adding another layer to a game in which Oklahoma already faces a steep test against one of the SECs more complete teams. [Read more 🡒]
Sooners Land An Early Defensive Piece Fans Will Want To Watch
Oklahoma picked up an early defensive building block for its 2028 class when linebacker Schell, a four-star prospect from Rabun Gap-Nacoochee High School in Georgia, committed after a visit to Norman. The Sooners beat out finalists Clemson and Michigan, and Schells decision came after meeting with linebackers coach Brent Venables, a key part of what helped put Oklahoma in front.
Schell said the fit mattered in several ways, from the culture around the program to the way he believes he would be used in the scheme, along with his faith. For a Sooners staff that is always working ahead on the recruiting calendar, landing a player with that kind of early buzz gives fans a name to keep tracking long before that class arrives on campus. [Read more 🡒]