2 winners and 3 losers from Oklahoma's embarrassing loss to South Carolina

The Oklahoma Sooners are losers for the fourth time this season after maybe the most embarrassing loss yet to South Carolina on Saturday in Norman, 42-25.

It's easy to pick out the obvious losers from such humiliation, including head coach Brent Venables, offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle, and quarterback John Mateer, but there are also some losers from the outcome for various reasons that might go unnoticed. There are also even two winners, no matter how bad that loss was.

Loser: Lloyd Avant

Arbuckle continues to sabotage the Sooners' backfield, and Lloyd Avant seems to be suffering the most.

Avant is clearly the Sooners' RB1, and has been all season. When Arbuckle finally committed to the run last week against Mississippi State, he fed Avant for a team-high 13 carries. He took those carries for 55 yards while averaging 4.2 yards per attempt. Not outstanding, but also not bad.

It was the first time since Week 1 that someone other than Mateer led OU in rushing attempts. The result was the most production the Sooners' offense has had in an SEC matchup since joining the conference in 2024.

However, a week later against South Carolina, Arbuckle went back to the same mind-boggling backfield rotation with no rhythm. Avant tied with Tory Blaylock with six carries, while freshman Jonathan Hatton Jr. led the backfield for the first time with seven attempts. Mateer again led the team with 11 rushes for 29 yards.

Obviously, with that disorder, no one had a good day on the ground, as Blaylock led the Sooners with 32 rushing yards. Avant had 25, and Hatton had 26. No one ever got a chance to get going, especially not Avant.

If Arbuckle has decided Avant just isn't cut out to be a lead back, that's fine. Then feed whoever you believe is. But no one is ever going to look worthy of an RB1 designation to jolt the running game in this dismantled backfield.

Avant has been the closest thing the Sooners have had to a lead back this season, but Arbuckle is keeping him on a leash to keep from breaking away as a productive running back.

Winner: Ivan Carreon

Where have you been, Ivan Carreon?

The Sooners have been lackluster at wide receiver all season long, other than Isaiah Sategna, but every time someone new gets a chance, they seem to prove they deserved more snaps this whole time. Carreon can join Manny Choice and maybe even Jacob Jordan in that group.

Carreon finally got a rare opportunity, and with it, he ended up in the end zone twice as part of five catches for 88 yards, which were both team highs. He was a winner on Saturday, but the Sooners will be the losers come December, when Carreon, listed at a towering 6-foot-6, becomes yet another receiver to transfer and succeed somewhere else.

Losers: Whitt Newbauer and Bowe Bentley

Backup quarterbacks Whitt Newbauer and Bowe Bentley are flat-out getting disrespected by OU's coaching staff at this point.

The game was clearly out of hand on Saturday entering the fourth quarter, and South Carolina even gave its backup quarterback some snaps, but Mateer was out there the entire time for OU, padding stats in garbage time. Newbauer and Bentley are both desperate for playing time, with inexperience being their greatest flaw right now, but they watched from the sideline as Arbuckle squandered their best chance at playing time.

The rest of us are starting to wonder just how bad of players Newbauer and Bentley are. That's not fair to them, but it's the only reasonable expectation for neither of them ever getting a snap, even during garbage time or after Mateer turns the ball over three times in the first half against Georgia.

The Sooners don't have a reliable quarterback this season, and it seems they won't in the future either, because either these two are just so bad they don't belong on the field, or they'll transfer and finally thrive somewhere else.

Winner: Kip Lewis

OU linebacker Kip Lewis is going to have to patent the "Kip-Six."

Lewis has three career interceptions and has returned all of them to the end zone, including for 30 yards in the second quarter against South Carolina for OU's first points. He also added five tackles, 0.5 sack, and 0.5 tackle for loss to his stat sheet.

But, even a player as great as Lewis had to be a loser in some way on Saturday, as that was the first time the Sooners lost a game in which Lewis had a "Kip-Six."

Losers: OU fans

The crowd at Memorial Stadium booed throughout the game, and the student section even chanted "Fire Arbuckle!" I've written this before, but there's no shame on fans for jeering; the embarrassment falls on those in charge of the product that those fans are paying to watch.

Sooner Nation doesn't have a team to be proud of right now, and at times, it feels the fans are the only ones who still hold this blue-blood program to the standard it has earned. When the Sooners lose, so do the fans.

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