Brent Venables sends firm message regarding the state of the Oklahoma Sooners' offensive line heading into 2025

Last season, the Oklahoma Sooners' offensive line had a pretty sharp downgrade from its usual state of dominance, playing a part in the Sooners' offensive woes. 

While there were plenty of other circumstances that influenced their play with injuries, the poor scheme, and quarterbacks that had zero feel in the pocket, the bottom line is that the unit played well below their expectations last season. Even though the numbers for the starting unit were more encouraging than you'd expect (46% of pressures and 38% of sacks were allowed by backups/non-OL), it was still their worst year in some time. 

However, there is plenty of reason for optimism about this unit turning around next season, despite some skepticism from outside sources. From Brent Venables at SEC Media Days:

"The offensive line. All the experience that we gained a year ago. And then the additions that we made and what we recruited out of high school and what we’ve been developing. Guys like Eddy Pierre-Louis. The offensive line is led by our best leader from an emotional standpoint, a vocal standpoint — it’s Troy Everett....We’ve made that quarterback room better than at any point in time we were a year ago. I really feel like we’ve been able to do that at the offensive line. You can say the same thing with the three portal additions, Derek Simmons and Luke Baklenko and Jake Maikkula.” 

Heading into last season, Oklahoma had just two returning players with any starts: Jacob Sexton and Troy Everett. That duo had just eight combined starts and 808 snaps.

This year? OU has six players returning who played significant snaps in 2024. They combined for 46 starts and 3,198 snaps last season. That isn't counting the three transfers, who add a combined 61 career starts to this line, and it's evident that the Sooners are in a much better spot here already. 

The Sooners also added several talented offensive line recruits, including their highest-ranked OL commit ever in Michael Fasusi, who is already pushing for playing time. 

It's difficult to develop chemistry on the offensive line. With as much turnover as the Sooners had last year, combined with shaking off the last dregs of Lincoln Riley's lack of recruiting up front, it's no surprise their line fell off last season. 

However, all of the returning talent, as well as the coaching prowess of offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh and S&C coach Jerry Schmidt, has the Sooners in a much better position heading into this season. 

Anyone who thinks this group is a "bad" offensive line feels like they're going to be in for a rude awakening heading into next year.