Oklahoma OC Ben Arbuckle Still 'Evolving' as He Enters First Season With the Sooners

Battling Venables’ defense every day in practice throughout spring football gave Arbuckle a first-hand look at the kinds of athletes he’s tasked to beat this fall.

“What they do schematically and some of the guys we get to go against, I see it as a real competitive advantage for us that we get to go against these guys every single day,” Arbuckle said.

It’s also given Arbuckle an outstanding feedback loop on all the alterations and improvements he’s making to his own playbook. 

“I'm a believer that if you're not constantly evolving, you're falling behind,” Arbuckle said. “Because those guys at other schools, they get paid a lot of money to coach, too, and if you keep doing the same thing over and over and over again, they're gonna stop you eventually.”

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Part of that process requires Arbuckle to fit the scheme to the personnel he has on campus in Norman. 

But Arbuckle has also put faith in his offensive coaching staff, as they’ve seen plenty of high-level football throughout their careers. 

“They've had a lot of success everywhere, too,” Arbuckle said. 

Oklahoma faces one of the toughest schedules in the country. 

The second game on the slate will match OU with Michigan’s ferocious defensive front, and there will be no pushovers in SEC play. 

Growing pains are to be expected, but Oklahoma is prepared to work through those hiccups with its new offensive coordinator. 

“You learn and you grow and you adapt,” Venables said. “… You lean on the staff, if you’re going to be successful. As a coordinator, you’re not going to do it alone. Can’t play quarterback alone. 

“… You gotta go through it as a young coach and figure all those things out. But his pedigree has been really good. He’s had great success. He’s done more with less. He’s very confident, it’s a really good system, that systematically has proven to have elite-level, high-level success for a long time.”

Even if Arbuckle was still at Washington State, he’d be looking at ways to put Mateer and his weapons in even better positions. 

Now, he gets the opportunity to tweak and install wrinkles against some of the best competition in college football.

“You're constantly looking at yourself, what you've done in the past and how you can get better,” Arbuckle said. “If you're not evolving, you're falling behind in college football. So we don't ever wanna do that."