Doing Nothing Is No Longer an Option for Brent Venables and Oklahoma

There probably isn’t an Oklahoma fan alive who couldn’t use a bye week right about now. Unfortunately, the Sooners offense might need something closer to an intervention.

Oklahoma gets No. 1 Texas next in the Cotton Bowl, and you’d have a hard time finding many Crimson-and-Cream faithful who will look you directly in the eye and tell you they’re confident the Sooners will win.

Can they win? Sure.

It’s Red River. Weird stuff happens in that stadium. Better Oklahoma teams have lost to Texas teams they should have beaten, and Sooners teams nobody gave much of a chance have walked out of Dallas with the Golden Hat.

But confidence? That’s another matter entirely.

Hell, after what we’ve watched the last three weeks, there are Oklahoma fans who aren’t confident this offense can score a touchdown against Texas, much less enough of them to actually win the thing.

That’s not manufactured outrage for clicks, either.

After hanging 51 on UTEP in the opener, Oklahoma managed 10 points against Michigan, 14 against New Mexico and 13 against Georgia.

Thirty-seven points. Three games.

The latest mess came Saturday in Athens, where Oklahoma somehow finished with more first downs than Georgia and nearly matched the Bulldogs in total offense while getting run out of Sanford Stadium, 41-13.

How does that happen?

Well, having your quarterback turn the ball over on three consecutive second-quarter possessions is a pretty good place to start.

John Mateer’s first mistake was the killer. Oklahoma had finally put together a real drive and reached the Georgia 2-yard line with a chance to cut a 14-0 deficit in half. Mateer rolled left, hesitated with two receivers working open in front of him and somehow lost the football without taking the kind of hit that usually explains a fumble.

Chris Cole picked it up and went 85 yards the other way.

Instead of 14-7, it was 21-0.

On Oklahoma’s next possession, Mateer had a clean pocket and fired an ill-advised ball into double coverage for an interception. Georgia didn’t score off that one, apparently deciding the Sooners deserved a brief act of mercy.

Mateer gave it right back anyway.

Later in the half, he rolled right on fourth down, tried to escape pressure and fumbled again. Cole recovered that one too and returned it to the Oklahoma 10.

Georgia scored two plays later.

That’s how a game that reads competitive fist fight on the stat sheet becomes an SEC burial on the scoreboard.

The Sooners weren’t murdered.

They walked into a propeller blade.

And that brings us to the real question Oklahoma has to answer during this bye week. I’m less interested at this point in another week of everybody arguing over who deserves 23 percent of the blame, who deserves 17 percent and whose position coach should be fired first.

I want to know what Brent Venables and his staff are willing to do about it.

Because if Oklahoma comes out of this bye week with John Mateer taking every meaningful snap, Ben Arbuckle holding the same call sheet and everybody promising they’ll just execute the same stuff a little better this time, I’m not sure what else to call it.

At some point, refusing to try something different starts looking an awful lot like coaching malpractice.

Everybody has a suspect

If you’ve spent five minutes around Oklahoma football since Saturday, you’ve heard the arguments.

Mateer is the problem.

No, Arbuckle is the problem.

No, it’s Bill Bedenbaugh.

The offensive line can’t block anybody.

The receivers don’t get open.

Emmett Jones can’t develop them.

Venables hired all these people, so fire him.

There are about 37 different versions of the same angry conversation bouncing around X, message boards, YouTube shows and probably every sports bar from Norman to Tulsa.

Some of it is fair. Some of it is emotional. Some of it is nonsense.

The offensive line hasn’t been good enough. That’s true. The running game hasn’t been good enough either. Oklahoma hasn’t consistently produced explosive plays in the passing game, Arbuckle hasn’t coordinated anything remotely resembling an Oklahoma-caliber offense and Mateer simply hasn’t played quarterback well enough.

Bill Bedenbaugh isn’t above criticism because he has put a bunch of guys in the NFL. Neither is Emmett Jones. Neither is Arbuckle.

And ultimately, VENABLES OWNS EVERY BIT OF IT.

Sorry, Brent. It comes with the big office.

But here’s where I think the conversation needs to move now: We’ve spent enough time identifying the disease. Oklahoma has two weeks before playing (arguably) the best team on its schedule, which also happens to be the program it despises more than any other.

So what’s the treatment?

Because continuing to run the same stuff with the same people and expecting it to suddenly look different isn’t patience anymore.

It’s a decision.

Nobody said Whitt Newbauer is the savior

This is where the quarterback conversation starts getting stupid.

Any suggestion that Oklahoma should give Whitt Newbauer a legitimate opportunity immediately gets twisted into, “Oh, so you think Whitt Newbauer is better than John Mateer?”

I don’t know.

That’s sort of the point.

You don’t know either.

What I do know is that Mateer hasn’t played well enough to make the question ridiculous, and Oklahoma hasn’t given Newbauer enough meaningful football for anybody outside the Switzer Center to know what he might look like with the first-team offense.

Yet there seems to be this expectation that the rest of us should simply accept the coaching staff’s conclusion that Mateer gives Oklahoma the best chance to win.

Why?

I’m serious.

Why?

What exactly has this staff done offensively to earn that level of blind trust?

We’re being asked to take the evaluation of a staff presiding over one of the least-threatening Oklahoma offenses in memory as gospel when it tells us the guy running that offense is unquestionably a better option than somebody it refuses to play.

That’s a pretty convenient arrangement.

And it gets harder to accept because Venables himself spent the offseason saying good things about Newbauer.

This isn’t some 18-year-old kid who got to Norman six weeks ago. Newbauer started games at Mercer. He had 12 touchdowns and just four interceptions in those games as a true freshman.

He’s been in Arbuckle’s offense since last season and is now in Year 2 of running it. Venables talked publicly during the spring about his development, decision-making, ability to distribute the football and keep the offense out of bad situations.

Then Newbauer went into the spring game and completed seven of nine passes while facing a unit made up largely of Oklahoma’s No. 1 defense. Sure, Mateer put up better numbers in the spring game — against a unit made up largely of No. 2s.

Does completing seven passes in April mean Newbauer’s ready to go carve up Texas?

Of course not.

But let’s stop pretending there’s some mountain of evidence proving he can’t play, either.

Because there isn’t.

So when I’m told, “John gives us the best chance to win,” my response at this point is pretty simple:

Nope. You gotta prove it.

Talent isn’t the same thing as quarterback play

Mateer may very well be the most talented quarterback in Oklahoma’s room. In fact, I’d be surprised if he isn’t.

He’s athletic. He has a live arm. We’ve seen enough flashes to understand why coaches are enamored with what he can be.

But at some point we have to stop evaluating the idea of John Mateer and start evaluating the John Mateer actually playing football games.

Those aren’t necessarily the same guy.

Arm talent doesn’t matter much if you’re late finding the open receiver. Athleticism doesn’t fix turnovers. Whatever Mateer does in practice that gives the coaches confidence isn’t putting points on the board once the lights come on.

The theoretical ceiling is becoming less important by the week because Oklahoma has been living on the floor.

And the bar for Newbauer isn’t exactly Caleb Williams coming off the bench against Texas in 2021, either.

Can he get the offense organized? Can he get the football out? Can he recognize the open guy and throw it to him? Can he protect possessions? Can he manufacture a few first downs before the OU defense has to go right back onto the field?

That’s where we are.

I don’t need Newbauer to throw for 400 yards. I’d settle for seeing whether the offense looks any different with somebody else pulling the trigger.

The comparison isn’t Newbauer versus the best possible version of Mateer that exists in the coaches’ imagination.

It’s Newbauer versus the quarterback Mateer has actually been.

HUGE difference.

Arbuckle doesn’t get to duck this one

There’s another side of the Newbauer question that hasn’t gotten enough attention, and it lands directly in Arbuckle’s lap.

Let’s assume for a moment the coaches are right and Newbauer truly isn’t capable of running this offense.

OK.

Why not?

He’s in Year 2.

If your backup quarterback has spent that long in your offense and still can’t be trusted to play meaningful snaps while the starter turns the football over three straight times, how is that not a player-development problem?

OU Insider’s Travis Davidson said essentially the same thing after the game in Athens, and the take was met on X with comments like “What’s on the bench is even worse and they know it. OU’s next QB is currently playing at another school.”

Another responder echoed those sentiments, saying he didn’t believe Sooners assistant head coach of offense Kevin Wilson would lie to Venables about Newbauer’s ability to replace Mateer if necessary, and if Wilson did believe in Newbauer, he’d have already gotten an opportunity.

That’s pretty convenient thing to assume, and could be correct. but it still points to one of two scenarios:
1. Newbauer is capable of playing and Arbuckle continues choosing Mateer anyway, even of the results,
or
2. Newbauer isn’t capable after nearly two years in the system.

Pick one.

Either way, as Travis said in his tweet, you’re left to wonder whether Arbuckle’s relationship with Mateer is influencing a decision that should be made solely around what gives Oklahoma the best chance to win.

If number 2 truly IS the case, then why in the actual hell did Oklahoma enter a season carrying College Football Playoff expectations missing a backup quarterback the staff trusted enough to use if the starter struggled?

You don’t get to build the quarterback room, coach the quarterback room, set the depth chart and then point to the weakness of the quarterback room as the reason nobody else can play.

That’s a hell of a loophole.

And I’m not buying it.

Quarterback isn’t the only change on the table

I also don’t think this conversation should stop with Mateer.

If Venables won’t change quarterbacks, then changing the person calling the plays ought to be on the table.

If he isn’t willing to change playcallers, then Newbauer deserves real first-team preparation and a legitimate shot at running the offense.

I’d seriously consider both.

That’s not because I think changing two things guarantees Oklahoma beats Texas. It probably doesn’t.

It’s because what Oklahoma is doing right now clearly isn’t working, and this is the one point on the schedule where Venables actually has time to tear into it.

Two weeks.

No Saturday game to prepare for this week.

No excuse to tell us there wasn’t enough practice time to explore alternatives.

This offense isn’t a little off. It isn’t missing one block here or one throw there.

It’s jeopardizing the season.

You cannot score 37 points in three games, watch the same problems show up over and over, enter a bye before playing No. 1 Texas and come out of it saying, “We just have to execute better.”

No.

You’ve burned through that answer.

Change personnel. Change the playcaller. Change some of the scheme. Simplify the offense. Throw half the playbook in a dumpster if that’s what it takes.

I don’t particularly care which lever gets pulled first.

Pull one.

Find something that gives this offense a pulse.

What do you tell the defense?

This is the part that bothers me more than the rest of it, and it’s what I hear and read in the comments section every time I go live and interact with the Sooner Faithful.

Oklahoma doesn’t owe Newbauer playing time simply because fans want to see him. It doesn’t owe Mateer a starting job because he’s talented, transferred here with Arbuckle or signed a fat NIL deal that placed fat expectations on on him before the season.

It sure as hell doesn’t owe Arbuckle continued playcalling duties because he’s the offensive coordinator, either.

What Oklahoma owes is the football team.

Venables spends an enormous amount of time talking about standards. Discipline. Accountability. Doing the mundane stuff correctly. Practicing a certain way. Preparing a certain way.

And, of course, “the things winning requires.”

I’ve heard some version of that phrase more times than I can count since Venables returned to Norman.

Well, here we are.

What does winning require from you, Coach?

Does it require making your captain uncomfortable?

Does it require telling your offensive coordinator you’re taking the call sheet?

Does it require admitting that something you believed in August may not be true anymore?

Because if “doing what winning requires” only applies when a linebacker misses a fit, a defensive back blows a coverage or some third-string kid gets yanked for missing an assignment, then it isn’t much of a standard.

It’s a bumper sticker.

Venables has pulled and chewed out players for mistakes throughout his tenure. Every coach does it. Venables does it with more intensity — and louder — than what you hear and see on other sidelines across college football.

Screw up, expect an ass chewing and most likely a lost rep or two. Keep screwing up and somebody else gets your snaps on Saturdays. It’s not personal, it’s just part of the deal at Oklahoma.

That’s football. And in Norman, football excellence Just Means More.

Yet somehow Mateer has gotten by with turning the football over repeatedly since he arrived without missing a single play aside from Kent State last season after having surgery on the thumb he broke a week earlier against Auburn.

Oklahoma’s offense spent much of last season fighting many of the same issues we’re still talking about now, but nothing seems capable of triggering even a temporary change at quarterback. It doesn’t even trigger the explosive ass chewings from Venables that OU defensive players expect to receive for being six-inches left or right of where Venables coached them to be.

Against Georgia, three straight turnovers weren’t enough.

Thirteen points against the Bulldogs wasn’t enough. Neither was fourteen against New Mexico. Or ten against Michigan in Week 2.

So what is?

At what point does Mateer have to earn the next rep the same way Venables expects everyone else on the roster to earn theirs? When does a boneheaded throw into coverage trigger a BV eruption and intense ass-chewing on the sideline? A series for Newbauer?

Because right now, whether the coaches intend it or not, the message looks pretty obvious: Most players can lose their snaps.

One can’t.

Try selling that to a defensive player who’s been chewed out for missing an assignment.

This defense is being wasted

And that defense is exactly why the whole thing is so infuriating.

Venables has finally built the kind of Oklahoma defense fans spent years screaming for during the latter stages of the Bob Stoops era and pretty much the entirety of the one that followed.

Kip Lewis. Peyton Bowen. Jayden Jackson. David Stone. Owen Heinecke.

Those guys are playing their asses off.

The final score in Athens didn’t look like it, but the offense helped turn that game into a rout. Georgia scored one touchdown without its offense taking a snap after Mateer’s first fumble. Another Bulldogs possession started practically on top of Oklahoma’s goal line after his third turnover.

What exactly was the defense supposed to do with that?

Oklahoma doesn’t need 50 points a week with this group. It needs a functioning offense that doesn’t make the defense play football with one arm tied behind its back.

That’s the real tragedy here. This offense rarely functions.

Venables finally has a unit capable of carrying championship-level weight, and the offense keeps throwing another plate onto the bar.

Those defensive players deserve more than another Tuesday press conference where everyone talks about fundamentals and needing to get better.

“We just have to get better” isn’t enough anymore.

Not with a bye week.

Not with Texas next.

Not when there are obvious things you haven’t even tried.

This team deserves to know the coaching staff will turn over every rock available before allowing the season to disappear because the quarterback doesn’t have to perform at the same level to keep his job.

Now it belongs to Venables

That’s why this isn’t really a John Mateer column anymore.

And it isn’t a Whitt Newbauer column.

It’s a Brent Venables column.

Venables and his staff had the opportunity to make a quarterback change in Athens and chose not to. That’s done. We can argue about whether they should have until July, and it won’t change anything.

What matters is what he does now.

The bye gives Oklahoma time to prepare Newbauer with the first offense. It gives the staff time to put together a package for him if Venables isn’t prepared to make an outright change. It gives Venables time to reconsider who is calling plays.

Most importantly, it gives him enough time that “we weren’t prepared to do that” shouldn’t be an acceptable answer afterward.

If Oklahoma comes out against Texas with essentially the same plan and gets essentially the same result, this lands on Venables in a different way.

Not because he failed to foresee the problem.

We ALL SEE THE PROBLEM. But identifying it is only half the battle.

You haven’t lacked alternatives. There are alternatives sitting on the sideline and wearing headsets next to him.

It lands on him because he saw the problem and decided not to seriously test another solution. That’s the dividing line for me.

Maybe Mateer starts against Texas and plays the game of his life. Wonderful. Nobody rooting for Oklahoma is going to complain about being wrong if the Sooners walk out of Dallas with a win.

Maybe Newbauer gets legitimate preparation, plays and looks terrible.

Fine.

Now we know.

But right now the coaching staff is essentially asking everyone to trust an answer it hasn’t demonstrated, while the evidence everybody can see is an Oklahoma offense repeatedly failing to function.

So let Newbauer compete for it.

Really compete for it.

Give him the reps. Give him part of the plan. Make Mateer respond to somebody actually threatening his job instead of merely standing behind him on the depth chart.

And if Arbuckle still can’t get the offense moving, take the damn call sheet out of his hands too.

I’m not demanding Venables discover some secret offense over the next 10 days.

I’m demanding that he act like a coach whose season may depend on finding one.

He’s spent five years telling Oklahoma players jobs are earned, winning requires sacrifice and nobody gets to put himself above the standard.

Now the standard is his problem.

If everybody has to earn his reps, make Mateer earn his.

If everything is supposed to be about giving Oklahoma the best chance to win, then Arbuckle’s job title can’t make his role untouchable either.

And if Venables believes everything he’s preached since walking back into Norman, he’ll spend this bye week proving those rules apply to the men making the decisions just as much as the players carrying them out.

Otherwise, “the things winning requires” is just something that sounds good behind a microphone.

And Oklahoma football has bigger problems than bad offense.