Oklahoma football: Optimism high for 2022 season, but Sooners still must earn it
By Chip Rouse
High expectations are inherent in the Oklahoma brand. A long history of individual and collective success will do that for you.
There’s no question that the Sooners have undergone some major changes since the last college football season. The general opinion of those allegedly in the know in college football is that Oklahoma will still be good in 2022 but not as good as the Sooners have been in recent seasons.
That’s what’s the people who will be sitting and watching and even following Oklahoma football next season are saying. But that group will have no control over what happens on the field. And the Sooner players have a different attitude and outlook on what the Sooners will be in the coming season, and they aren’t about to concede anything to anybody.
That’s just part of the Oklahoma DNA. If you think you’re better than us, come prove it.
It’s probably understandable that the college football pundits and prognosticators are a little skittish about what kind of product Oklahoma will put on the field this fall. It’s not that they don’t believe the Sooners will be good, but rather just not as good as they have been in the five-year Big 12 championship run under the departed Lincoln Riley.
You see, “good” is a relative term, and if it isn’t associated with 11 or 12 wins and no fewer than 10, a conference championship and national title contention, it is unsatisfactory by Oklahoma’s high standards.
Many college football experts and analysts aren’t exactly sure what to make of Oklahoma heading into the 2022 season. The Sooners lost some key firepower on offense, including a head coach considers one of the best offensive architects and play-callers in college football plus a pair of quarterbacks who will be starting at other Power Five programs this fall.
The transfer portal has been a two-way highway at OU this offseason. Fifteen Sooners exited the program via the portal, and 13 others crossed paths making their way to Norman. Among the 13 incoming transfers was Dillon Gabriel, who will be an ideal fit in offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby’s offense. Gabriel is an experienced field general and playmaker, who just two seasons ago at UCF ranked No. 2 in the nation in total offense.
OU has also added four-star freshman Nick Evers, who decommitted from Florida shortly after Brent Venables and Lebby came on board as part of the new coaching staff and picked up Pittsburgh transfer Davis Beville from the transfer portal to shore up the QB position after the exit of Spencer Rattler to South Carolina and Caleb Williams, who joined Riley at USC.
The Sooners lost a couple of top receivers, but they are still loaded at that position, including a couple of the Big 12’s best in juniors Marvin Mims and Theo Wease. And they remain strong in the running back room again this season, which has long been a staple of Oklahoma offenses. Freshman running backs Jovantae Barnes and Gavin Sawchuk will be posing a strong challenge for playing time to returning backs Eric Gray and Marcus Major.
Defensively, new defensive coordinator Ted Roof probably has more returning experience to work with than Lebby on the offensive side, but the Sooner have also supplemented that experience by bringing in a number of other defensive players with college pedigree, especially up front and at the back end of the defense.
And, of course, you have to factor in what new head coach Brent Venables brings to the table as one of the best defensive coaches in the college game.
Venables was asked during the recent Oklahoma Coaches Caravan stops what kind of football team he has at as he prepares for his first season in the head job at OU.
“Very competitive,” he said. “I think the best thing about this group of guys, certainly they have bought in… Our guys are hungry. They’re tough-minded. They’ve got tremendous pride, (and) they want to win a championship.
“The higher we have raised the standards, the more they have answered the bell. You know, you have a saying: You try to raise the standard and lose the losers; lower the standard and you’ll lose the winners. So, we’ve continually tried to raise the standard,” Venables said.
Oklahoma has the tools and the talent, not to mention the burning determination, to get back what they lost last season: another Big 12 championship. The other Big 12 teams are going to do everything in their power to prevent that from happening.
Venables and the Sooners have a couple of seasons to get ready for the move to the more competitive SEC, but they still have unfinished business in the Big 12.