By Chris Marler
Will Oklahoma win big or go broke betting on themselves?
Going into last season, the vibes were high for Oklahoma. The Sooners were coming off a ten-win season, and even after losing Dillon Gabriel to Oregon in the transfer portal, they were confident coming into their first season in the SEC. That confidence also extended into, well, an extension for head coach Brent Venables.
The Sooners gave the third-year head coach a new deal for six years and $51.6 million.
Fast forward to the season and things did not go well. The natives were restless in Norman, and Venables job security went from stable to hot seat in almost no time. Then, a late November win against Alabama wiped away ten weeks of frustrating mediocrity and made things feel right again at OU.
The Alabama win masked a lot of deficiencies. The season was considered a bit of a success despite a loss to LSU the next week, an embarrassing loss to Navy in the bowl game, and then a mass exodus in the portal that saw 26 players leave Norman.
The Sooners blocked out the outside noise from frustrated fans and the “I told you so’s” coming from rival fanbases around the conference. They hired Ben Arbuckle from Washington State as their offensive coordinator. The Cougars quarterback John Mateer, one of the highest ranked players in the country from the portal, followed Arbuckle to Normal to pilot the ship.
Now the Sooners head into 2025 with an oddly quiet confidence. There’s something to be said for betting on yourself and for blocking out the haters as the kid say. The concern with that comes from the fact that they did the same thing last year ago and it resulted in their second losing season in three years.
Oklahoma allowed a Heisman finalist at quarterback to walk out the door because of what they already had on the roster. Dillon Gabriel took Oregon to a No. 1 ranking and the college football playoff. Jackson Arnold took Oklahoma to one of their worst offensive outputs in the last quarter century.
Now the question becomes can the double or nothing mentality coming from Norman actually pay off this time around.
