No. 18 Oklahoma hosts No. 15 Michigan on Saturday in a marquee matchup of college football heavyweights and a game that is eerily similar in style and substance to the situation the Sooners faced a decade ago in another Week 2 statement opportunity against Tennessee.
Saturday's game will be the first of many big games for Oklahoma in the 2025 season and the first for new offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle and new starting quarterback John Mateer since joining the Sooner program in the offseason.
Arbuckle is a disciple of the Air Raid offense and was hired by head coach Brent Venables after a disappointing 6-7 season and the worst offensive performance by an Oklahoma team in a quarter-century. Arbuckle is half of the package the Sooners brought in to revamp the stagnant Sooner offense and return it to traditional Oklahoma standards. The other key piece, of course, was Mateer, rated as arguably the best quarterback out of the Transfer Portal.
The Sooners looked impressive offensively in their season opener against FCS opponent Illinois State, with nearly 500 yards of offense and Mateer setting a new Oklahoma record for passing yards in his Sooner debut. Michigan, of course, presents a whole different challenge for this new-look Oklahoma team.
Sooners been in this spot before with new OC and QB
The circumstances were eerily similar 10 years ago when Oklahoma faced another major top-25 nonconference opponent in the second week of the season. The weekend after a dominating 41-3 victory over Akron in Baker Mayfield's debut as an Oklahoma Sooner, 19th-ranked OU was at No. 23 Tennessee for a game that was of similar importance to the Sooners' season after coming off an unsatisfying 8-5 year, one of just four in Bob Stoops' 18 seasons at Oklahoma that OU won fewer then 10 games, the year before.
Mayfield was also an Oklahoma transfer quarterback who walked on at OU after playing one season at Texas Tech. At Oklahoma, Mayfield was joined by new Sooner offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley, who at the time, like Arbuckle now, was considered one of the best young offensive minds in the college game and an up-and-comer in the coaching ranks. Also like Arbuckle, Riley played quarterback and specialized in coaching and developing quarterbacks and both have grown up as part of the Air Raid offense coaching tree.
In the 2015 game at Tennesse, the Volunteers, feeding off the 100,000-plus hostile home crowd, jumped out in front 17-0 in the opening 18 minutes of the game and led the Sooners 17-3 entering the fourth quarter.
Despite the two-touchdown deficit on the road in a difficult environment to play in, Mayfield's confidence never wanned, which is a quality college football experts also see in Mateer.
Mayfield threw a pair of touchdown passes in the final quarter, one coming on a 15-yard hookup with wide receiver Sterling Shepard with just 40 seconds remaining to tie the game at 17. The same duo hooked up on another touchdown connection in the second overtime to give the Sooners a dramatic comeback win and perhaps change the direction of that season.
Oklahoma went on to complete an 11-1 regular season in 2015 and go 11-2 overall after losing to Clemson and a Brent Venables defense 37-17 in a College Football Playoff semifinal. But the dye was cast for that turnaround season by the statement win in Week 2 and fueled by a revamped Oklahoma offense.
As much as Sooner fans love to hate Riley and how he up and jumped ship in favor of a West Coast gig with another college football blue blood, it's hard not to make comparisons between Arbuckle and him. Their offensive schemes are the same, they attack defenses in similar ways and they have a special way with quarterbacks.
The record will eventually speak for itself, but Sooner fans are hopeful that Arbuckle and Mateer generate the same kind of success that Riley and Mayfield did in that breakthrough 2015 season. A win Saturday over the Maize and Blue could be a big part of that.
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