Despite less than satisfactory results, OU football still has much to be thankful for in 2024

Thanksgiving is a national holiday in the United State, traditionally celebrated once a year on the final Thursday in November. It is a time when we give thanks for family and friends and the blessings around us and in our lives.

It is a day typically overfilled with family, an overabundance of food and football and serves as the prelude to the December holiday season. For football fans, it is the most wonderful time of the year with championship November drawing to a close and conference championships shortly to be decided. And, of course, the final jockeying of the 12 College Football Playoff places along with allocation of the plethora of holiday bowl assignments

This has been a flip-flop of a season for Oklahoma on the gridiron. Just two short years ago, Oklahoma was winning games with an offense that had the weapons to outscore its opponents but a defense that wasn't able to stop anybody and was not SEC ready.

Flash forward to the 2024 season and the Sooners offense ranks 92nd nationally in scoring offense and 118th in total offense. Meanwhile, Oklahoma's defensive performance has improved from 122nd nationally to 16th this season. For the most part, that's been the story of the season. Great defense, no offense, along with unusually high number of injuries to key offensive personnel.

That's the bad news from a season that hasn't been the finest for a team that has a long, championship-level history. But despite all that has gone wrong for the Sooners in their first season as a member of the SEC, there are also things that have gone well and much to be thankful for.

• Blessings and best wishes, first and foremost, go out to Julie Venables and the Venables family as she soldiers through the recurrence of her cancer. Brent Venables recently publicly announced that his wife has been traveling back and forth between Norman and New York the past several months for treatment and that she's doing "amazing" as of now. "Her spirit and strength is nothing short of amazing," the Sooner head coach said. "We've got a great team and great faith. It's in God's hands. A big part of the battle was her wanting to just fight and keep swinging, and that's what she's doing."

• And speaking of the will and determination to keep fighting and never give up, high on the list of giving thanks this holiday season is what we saw from the embattled Sooner football team this past weekend in the wild and wonderful decisive win over one of the juggernauts of college football in recent years. Despite having many things working against Oklahoma football this season, the Sooners rose up in the face of adversity and made a very good Alabama team look very ordinary while OU performed like world beaters in handing the Crimson Tide their worst defeat in a couple of decades.

• We would be highly remiss if we didn't give thanks to the terrific job that Brent Venables and first-year defensive coordinator Zac Alley have done this season with a defensive unit that just a couple of years ago was among the very worst in college football. This season more than any other in recent memory, the Sooners can honestly claim they are winning games as much, if not more so, because of their defense than their offensive production. Behind defensive leaders LB Danny Stutsman, Dl Ethan Downs and R Mason Thomas and DBs Billy Bowman and Robert Spears-Jennings, just to name a few, the 2024 Oklahoma defense ranks in the top 10 nationally in several major statistical categories, includine tackles for loss, yards allowed per rush, opponents' rushing touchdowns and interceptions returned for touchdowns.

• When the season began, true freshman Xavier Robinson was listed as fourth or fifth on the depth chart of OU running backs. Because of injuries and other issues at the running back position throughout the season, Robinson got his chance to step up and show out beginning with the sixth game of the season. It wasn't until Game No. 9 against Maine, though, that we began to see what the talented freshman from Oklahoma City could deliver. He had 29 yards rushing and 46 receiving yards in the nonconference win over Maine. He rushed for 56 yards in the crushing loss to Missouri, but his breakout game came in the win over Alabama. With 107 yards on the ground, a couple of rushing touchdowns and nearly six yards per carry from Robinson against the Crimson Tide, Oklahoma may have found its running back of the future even earlier than expected.

• Oklahoma's top five wide receivers have played in a grand total of games combined this season. I don't believe I have ever heard of a college or NFL team facing this much adversity at a single skilled position. Needless to say, the Sooners' passing game has been virtually nonexistent this season. In fact, OU ranks 121st nationally and is averaging just 172 passing yards per game. To put that in perspective, the Sooners averaged 325 yards through the air per game just one year ago, sixth best in the nation. Out of this season's receiving abyss, however, stepped an unheralded walk-on freshman receiver, Jacob Jordan, who has become one of the Sooners' most dependable receivers with the fourth most receptions (16) and yards (165) of all the OU wide receivers. I don't know what the future may hold for Jordan when OU gets healthy again at wide receiver, but Sooner fans can certainly be thankful for the game the freshman walk-on brought this season amid all the attrition in the receiving corps.

• Last but certainly not least, the Oklahoma football program is supported through thick and thin by one of the best fan bases in college football. Through all seven home games this season, the OU fans packed the Palace on the Prairie to nearly 85,000 and full capacity, just as they have done for 26 seasons and 159 consecutive games dating back to the beginning of the Bob Stoops coaching era at Oklahoma in 1999.

Happy Thanksgiving, Sooner Nation.

Boomer Sooner!!