Oklahoma football has two standing goals each and every season: play for and win a national championship and win the conference championship.
For over seven decades (since the 1950s) the Sooners have done extraordinarily well in achieving both goals. In the Associated Press poll era (since 1936), Oklahoma is tied for third with USC for the most national championships in football with seven (1950, 1955, 1956, 1974, 1975, 1985 and 2000).
The 2000 season is the Sooners most recent national title, although they played in three other national title games since then and have appeared in four College Football Playoffs.
As far as conference superiority goes, Oklahoma’s 50 conference championships, including 14 in the 28-year history of the Big 12, leads teams at the FBS level.
#Sooners coach Brent Venables on 2023 season: “If we just get better on defense we’re going to win 10-plus games and have a chance to hang a banner up at the end of the year.”
— Ryan Aber (@ryaber) June 14, 2023
The Sooners fell short of both goals in this their final season as a member of the Big 12. Some diehard Sooner faithful would say any season without at least a conference title is not a successful season. Another factor in what constitutes a successful season by Oklahoma standards is defeating chief rival Texas and in-state rival Oklahoma State.
The Sooners did beat Texas this season, handing the Longhorns their only regular-season loss, but fell short in a game at Oklahoma State in which they largely beat themselves.
We can all agree that 2023 won’t go down as one of the best seasons in Oklahoma football history, but it did represent appreciable improvement over the major disappointment of the year before.
What Brent Venables and the Sooners accomplished this season should not be diminished. It represents a giant step forward in what Venables and his assistant coaches are trying to build and the vision they have of what the reimagined OU football program can become.
The realistic expectations for OU in 2023 were three or four more wins than the six by the 2022 Sooner team in Venables’ first as head coach and measurable improvement on both sides of the line of scrimmage. The Sooners have 10 wins in 12 games and can make it 11 with a bowl victory.
OU finished the 2022 season unranked and receiving no votes. The Sooners are ranked 12th in all three major polls: College Football Playoff rankings, the Associated Press Top 25 and the Coaches Poll.
Check and check.
Offensively, Oklahoma ranked 13th in yards per game, 42nd in pass offense, 10th in rushing offense and No. 25 in scoring. Those were highly respectable numbers, and this season proved to be even better: No. 4 in yards per game, 6th in pass offense, 39th in rush offense and No. 3 in scoring offense.
The biggest problem in Venables’ debut season was as full of holes as a piece of Swiss cheese. A year ago, the OU defense ranked 122nd in yards allowed per game, 119th in passing yards given up, 106th in rushing defense and No. 90 in scoring defense. In 2023, the Sooners ranked 80th nationally in yards allowed, 99th in passing yards allowed, 57th in rushing defense and 41st in scoring defense. Improvement achieved.
The Sooners were among the worst teams in the nation in 2022 in third-down conversion percentage on both sides of the ball. The 2022 team ranked 49 in third-down conversion percentage offense and 88th in third-down conversion defense. Turn the page to 2023 and OU is 10th in third-down conversion offense and 14th in third-down conversion percentage defense.
Again, improvement noted, which is a positive sign that the program is moving in the right direction.
Back in the spring of this year, Venables said:
"“If we just get better on defense, we’re going to win 10-plus games and have a chance to hang a banner at the end of the year.”"
Just to be clear, Venables wasn’t talking about a national championship banner, but rather a conference championship banner. Well, the Sooners did win 10 games and we’re in contention for a conference title until the final weekend of the regular season.
“I’ve experienced success at the very highest level and it’s never been a straight line,” Venables told reporters recently. “The improvement has been incremental in most ways, and we’ll never stop improving.”