Oklahoma's new OC is in the house; now the real housework begins

A fortnight ago, as Oklahoma was preparing for its regular-season finale against LSU and closing in on finalizing the new offensive coordinator hire , head coach Brent Venables said there would be changes coming. We're now starting to see what he meant, and this is just the beginning.

New offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle is in the house and observed as the Sooners signed 20 recruits as members of the 2025 class. None of these players were recruited by Arbuckle, save QB Jett Niu, who Arbuckle recruited while he was in the same post at Washington State. Nevertheless, Arbuckle was extremely complimentary of OU's 2025 class.

"These coaches did an unbelievable job of finding the right talent, acquiring them and bringing them here to OU," Arbuckle told The Oklahoman. "I see playmakers all over the field."

Now the new OC's attention, along with Venables, is turned to the transfer portal, both in terms of retaining key returning personnel on offense, and acquiring the best talent available to add depth and experience and fill major position needs.

The fact that Arbuckle is only 29 years old and has been calling offensive plays for just three seasons has raised some concerns among some. But Venables said during his press conference last week that he was looking "at the quality, not necessarily the quantity," and he was adamant that Arbuckle was the best man for the job.

The Sooner head coach said he studied multiple offenses, examining style, presentation, game plans, development of personnel and such other details as overall efficiency, explosiveness, first downs, third downs and red-zone effectiveness. He evaluated a number of candidates, looking at this criteria, he said, and Arbuckle kept coming out at the top of the list.

Another factor that weighed favorably in Venables' decision on the new offensive coordinator was that Venables himself was 29 when Bob Stoops hired him to become Oklahoma's defensive coordinator, the same age that Stoops was when Bill Snyder hired him to be co-defensive coordinator at Kansas State. And Zac Alley was 30 when Venables brought him in ahead of the 2024 season to replace defensive coordinator Ted Roof.

What really stood out in the choice of Arbuckle, Venables said, was his work and development of quarterbacks and what the QBs who have been under his tutelage have accomplished in the passing game.

At Western Kentucky in 2022, Arbuckle worked with quarterback Austin Reed, who threw for a nation-best 4,746 yards and 40 touchdowns. Reed is now with the Chicago Bears. In Arbuckle's first season as offensive coordinator at Washington State in 2023, Cam Ward was the quarterback. Ward, now at Miami (FL) and a Heisman Trophy finalist, finished fourth nationally in passing yards per game under Arbuckle in 2023, averaging 311.3, and was sixth in total offense (323.3 yards per game).

This season, John Mateer was the quarterback in Arbuckle's system at Wazzu. Mateer threw for 3,139 yards with 29 touchdowns and only seven interceptions, completing 70% of his passes in six of the last eight regular-season games. It would not be surprising if Mateer, a sophomore and a Manning Award finalist, elects to enter the transfer portal and follows his offensive coordinator to Oklahoma.

There are curious similarities in Abuckle's background to that of a young Lincoln Riley when he was hired by Stoops to take over the Oklahoma offense in 2015 and elevated to head coach two years later.

Riley was 31 when he became the Sooners' offensive coordinator. Arbuckle, like Riley was at the time, is considered one of the brightest and fastest rising offensive minds in the college game today, and both are disciples of the Air Raid offensive scheme.

Yes, there are striking similarities between Arbuckle and Riley, but it would be wrong to consider Arbuckle as the second coming of the Riley era at Oklahoma, which despite the way it ended, was a highly successful and offensive-dominated time in OU football history.

For one thing, Riley had more experience in the building, development and game preparation of offensive teams than Arbuckle has in just three years doing same.

Regardless, Arbuckle has a giant task ahead of him fixing all that went wrong with an Oklahoma offense that just a few years ago was one of the most prolific and explosive in the college game, but this past season ranked near the bottom of the 133 FBS teams.

During the successful years under Riley and with the likes of Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts and Caleb Williams manning the quarterback spot, the Sooners lived by the big play (plays of 20-plus yards), but that facet of the game was virtually non-existent from the OU offense this season. This is one thing Arbuckle aims to fix.

The Sooners recorded a total of 32 plays of 20 or more yards this season. To put that in perspective, that's 55 fewer than Ole Miss, which led the SEC in that category, and at least 35 fewer than six other SEC teams this season. That's a pretty strong signal that if you want to compete, let alone win games, against the best teams and best defenses the SEC has to offer, you better be able to produce chunk plays on offense.

Only Kennesaw State ranked below Oklahoma this season in offensive plays of 20-plus yards. Of course, there are a lot of moving parts to that puzzle, but it starts with the offensive coordinator and then the quarterback, an area in which Arbuckle has shown high acumen and, importantly, on-the-field results.

There's no doubt that Oklahoma's new offensive coordinator has a big challenge ahead of him, because the Sooners' issues on offense clearly go much deeper than just being able to produce big plays downfield. Venables is betting his job on it and counting on Arbuckle being the right guy at the right time and in the right place to get the job done.

And so is Sooner Nation.