After their first losing season in a quarter century, Sooners fans go into the 2023 season cautiously optimistic, but sure that Oklahoma must quickly recover from the effects of Lincoln Riley’s departure a year ago in order to be prepared…
Oklahoma’s exhausting 2022 regular season is over. Thankfully.
After an arduous back and forth battle that saw the Sooners lose 51-48 in overtime to Texas Tech, we are all scratching our heads trying to figure out what went wrong this year.
Was it the defense? At times that squad showed the mark we expected from defensive-minded new head coach Brent Venables, but at others times, including during the same game, this squad looked like it wouldn’t beat a 3A high school team.
Was it the offense? At times QB Dillion Gabriel couldn’t connect with receivers, and halfway through the season we decided offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby was intentionally avoiding mid-distance passing routes in Gabriel’s quiver because of his inaccuracy. But then, he would toss beautiful 77-yard passes to Marvin Mims for touchdowns, as he did on Saturday night against Texas Tech.
Was it the coaching? At times we were sure Jeff Lebby was using some sort of Wheel of Fortune to decide plays. At other times his play calling was brilliant (when it worked).
Regardless of what it was, the last three games — two losses and one important Bedlam win — were microcosms of the season. And they lead us to conclude, at the very least, that Venables first year was as near a disaster as OU fans could stomach, even for a first-year head coach that brought thousands to the airport on the night he was named head coach.
A walk off field goal by West Virginia in Morgantown made one thing clear: The Sooners are headed for a possible 7-loss season, which would render Brent Venables’ first year as a head coach at Oklahoma a decisive failure.
The Sooners lost 23-20 on that Mountaineers field goal, but this loss had more to do with Oklahoma’s own ability to find ways to lose than West Virginia’s ability to find ways to win.
Check off these boxes:
— A missed field goal off an upright.
— A facemask penalty to negate an otherwise defensive stop, allowing W.Va. to complete a scoring drive.
— An offensive pass interference call that wiped out an OU touchdown.
— A give up of a fake punt.
— A dropped easy touchdown pass.
— A defense that played well in the first half, but gave up big third down plays (like they have all year) in the second half — giving West Virginia three long scoring drives.
“We don’t deserve to win when not doing all those things the right way,” Coach Brent Venables said.