Why did Brent Venables hire Ben Arbuckle as Oklahoma Sooners' next offensive coordinator?

As the search for the Oklahoma Sooners offensive coordinator progressed, Ben Arbuckle's name was a prominent fixture in their search. 

I've written about Arbuckle before, but it's been a remarkable journey for him as a coach. Just six years after working in oil and gas, he's now an offensive coordinator for a premier blue-blood SEC school for the Sooners. 

Arbuckle has guided the Washington State Cougars to tremendous success this season as one of the best offenses in college football. Now, as the play-caller for the Sooners, he'll look to replicate or even improve those results. 

What drew head coach Brent Venables to Arbuckle? He spoke about the process that went into narrowing the list down to Arbuckle on Wednesday:

"I spent a lot of time looking at the best candidates in college football and got to watch.....You take recommendations. You talk with people they work with. I love watching the tape, because that, to me, is the ultimate resume, and you get a feel for things. I study offenses more than I studied defenses over the past three decades and I have an appreciation for style, presentations, sequences, answers, game plans, personnel and utilizing the personnel, those types of things...a lot of little things that people don’t see, ome checks maybe people have built into their systems, things of that nature. There’s a lot of analytics that maybe support what you see, or maybe bring to light what you need to pay attention to ...overall efficiency, explosiveness, first downs, third downs, red zone, points per possession...Ben continued to be at the top of the list."

Venables also dismissed much of the criticism of Arbuckle's age and inexperience, citing his own career after taking over as the defensive coordinator for Kansas State at 27 years old. 

Arbuckle will need to hit the ground running for Oklahoma this season, as the pressure is on to turn one of the worst offenses in college football into a unit fitting of the Sooners' blue-blood status. 

Quarterback Jackson Arnold entered the transfer portal Wednesday as well, so it's likely Oklahoma will be starting a new quarterback in 2025 (probably a good thing overall). Arbuckle's ability to develop quarterbacks and tweak his scheme to fit their strengths was another feather in the cap for his capability to lead the Sooners' offense moving forward. 

Arbuckle's prowess as a play-caller and scheme have drawn lofty comparisons to Lincoln Riley. Hopefully, he'll be able to have a similar immediate impact as Riley's arrival had in 2015.