Not that Jason Witten will ever have much more to prove, but he now gets four chances to showcase his ability as an offensive coordinator at the college level.
Shortly after news broke that Brent Venables fired Ben Arbuckle as Oklahoma’s OC on Monday, SoonerScoop reported that Witten, OU’s tight ends coach, will take over play-calling duties for the rest of the Sooners’ 2026 season, which includes SEC matchups against Florida, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, and Missouri.
NEW: Oklahoma TE coach Jason Witten will takeover as playcaller for the Sooners, @SoonerScoop reports. https://t.co/ZOBXgkX4Xb https://t.co/ONscSvxR89 pic.twitter.com/j7gHPRwtpp
— On3 (@On3) November 2, 2026
Jason Witten gets Oklahoma interim OC nod over Kevin Wilson
Witten is the most famous name on OU’s staff as a legendary NFL tight end who’s destined for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but he’s the least experienced coach of the bunch. Kevin Wilson, on the other hand, has experience as a head coach and OC, even at OU in 2002-10, so it was a bit of a surprise that Venables abruptly handed the reins to Witten instead of Wilson.
Wilson returned to Norman last year and is now Assistant Head Coach for Offense. Obviously, he’ll still have a hand in the offense with that role, but a promotion to interim offensive coordinator had felt inevitable for weeks with Arbuckle on the hot seat.
Most recently, Wilson was Tulsa’s head coach for two seasons in 2023-24. He left a position as Ohio State’s OC to lead the Golden Hurricane and was Indiana’s head coach before that. He left OU for that Indiana job.
Wilson would have been a 180 from the 31-year-old Arbuckle. Witten, though, might be older but still lacks the padded coaching resume that Arbuckle also had.
Venables should reveal more about his decision during his weekly press conference on Tuesday, but either Wilson doesn’t want to run an offense at this point in his career, or Venables wants to see what Witten can do calling plays. Witten can either be auditioning to become the Sooners’ full-time OC or catch the eye of another team willing to offer him a promotion.
This promotion for Witten comes just eight games into being a college coach of any kind. Venables hired him over the offseason to replace Joe Jon Finley as OU’s tight ends coach.
After 17 NFL seasons and a brief stint in the booth as an analyst, Witten got into coaching in 2021 as the head coach of Liberty Christian School in Argyle, Texas, where both of his sons played at the time. He found a ton of success in that role with a state title, but there’s obviously a big difference between the SEC and the lesser private school division of Texas high school football.
In his final season there in 2025, Liberty Christian averaged 439.8 yards per game with a balanced attack of 2,042 rushing yards and 3,236 passing yards total. His quarterback, Quinn Murphy, was a dual-threat playmaker who's now at Baylor after signing as a consensus three-star recruit.
Again, though, we're talking about private high schools, not the SEC. It's not worth assuming that Witten's style will even be close to what he did at that level while anticipating what the Sooners could look like for the rest of this season under Witten's direction.
Coaching experience or not, though, it took far less than eight games for Witten to prove he was a home-run hire as a tight ends coach. Yes, it might seem premature to some, but Witten has already earned a promotion to see what he can accomplish with more responsibility after the difference he made in a small part of OU's offense.
The Sooners' 2026 season is already lost at 4-4, so Venables might as well see what he already has on staff before his fourth OC search begins.
Add us as a preferred source on Google