Oklahoma’s Crisis - Brent Venables is Lincoln Riley Inversed

Venables Panic Pick of Jackson Arnold Becomes a Disaster

Last year, quarterback Dillon Gabriel led the Sooners to a 10-2 record and lit up enemy defenses for a 172.0 QBR with 3660 yards passing, 9.5 yards per attempt, and a 30/6 TD/INT ratio. Yet that was not good enough for Venables.

Despite all of Gabriel’s success, Brent Venables panicked. He cowered and caved to the fear of losing prized 5-star recruit and backup quarterback Jackson Arnold to the transfer portal if Arnold was forced into backing up Gabriel for another long season. The decision has become a catastrophe.

Gabriel has a 186.8 QBR at Oregon with 9.7 yards per attempt, 914 yards, and a 6/0 TD/INT ratio. In comparison, Arnold has a pedestrian 120.9 QBR, a putrid 5.3 yards per attempt, and a 7/3 TD/INT ratio.

Arnold was pulled from the Tennessee debacle before the first half ended. His QBR for the game was 59.6 with 7-16 for 54 yards and a pick. On the biggest stage of his career, Arnold flopped. But there were warning signs that the implosion was coming. In Oklahoma’s previous three games against Temple, Houston, and Tulane, the offense was more off than on and was not explosive against Tulane and Houston. The OU offense bore no resemblance to last year’s prolific unit.

Venables blinked, kicking Gabriel to the curb. Now, he has blinked again because of his public lack of confidence in Arnold, who will be benched in favor of true freshman Michael Hawkins Jr. for the starting job going forward.  

Hawkins Does Enough to Gain a Shot 

It took a while, but Hawkins improved as the Tennessee game wore on, and he was certainly better than Arnold. Hawkins finished 11-18 for 132 yards and a 141 QBR. Hawkins led two TD drives in the 4^th quarter. He also added 22 rushing yards.

“This kid is your quarterback next week,” ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit said on the ESPN broadcast. “This kid has done enough in these handful of series in the second half.”

Brent Venables concurred.

“I love (Hawkins),” head coach Brent Venables said. “He’s confident, he’s loose in the right ways, the moment’s not going to overwhelm him even though he’s a young guy.”

Still, Venables was not pleased with offensive coordinator Seth Littrell’s offense overall and fans are calling for Littrell’s head.

“It’s very frustrating,” Venables said about the offensive performance. “There’s just some bad football. Guys getting beat and not winning their matchups, I don’t like that at all. You’ve got to go back and watch it.”

On the QB controversy, Venables added his criteria: “Who’s the most consistent (and) can execute the basics of our offense consistently,” Venables said. “It’s not real complicated. Then you’ve got to get in the game and perform too.”

Last June, athletic director Joe Castiglione gave Venables a new six-year deal. I pointed out that it was a masterstroke by Oklahoma because it would keep a lid on hot-seat talk if Oklahoma struggled this year.

But Oklahoma has plenty of rich boosters and of course SEC mad money.

Brent Venables is on the clock.