Changing QBs not really the answer to Oklahoma's offensive struggles

Oklahoma's success historically can be largely attributed to explosive, high-scoring offenses. That especially has been the case over the past couple of decades. But through four games this season, the Sooner offense is in shambles.

So far this season, Oklahoma ranks 77th in the country in scoring offense (29.0 points per game) and 118th in total offense -- just ahead of Temple that the Sooners beat 51-3 in the season opener.

To underscore the seriousness of OU's offensive struggles, just two seasons ago, in 2022 and Brent Venables' first season as head coach , the Sooners ranked No. 13 nationally in total offense, averaging 474 yards per game and 32nd in scoring (29.1). That Oklahoma team finished 6-7, the first losing record by an OU team in a quarter century. And four years before that (2018), the Sooners led the nation in both categories.

What a difference a couple of years make. This season, the Oklahoma football program has flipped the script: A defense that ranks 28th nationally in total defense and an offense that has dropped off to 119th, averaging just 299.5 yards per game. Past Sooner teams many times averaged that many yards of offense in the first half.

What has gone horribly wrong and where does the fault lie? The simple answer to a complex problem: with everyone and every aspect of the offense. The longer and more difficult answer: players out of position, bad player decisions in the flow of the game, poor execution of designed plays, even questionable play calls. And the ultimate responsibility and accountability rests with the coaching staff.

Venables has decided to change quarterbacks in an effort to trigger a missing spark to the stagnant Sooner offense. That may address one aspect of the problem, but it appears Oklahoma's offensive issues go much further than that. Injuries to key personnel certainly plays a part, and also poor communication from coaches to players and players among themselves. All of these things are contributing to the Sooners' issues on offense.

"(There is) great frustration," Venables acknowledged in his weekly press conference on Tuesday, "just certainly you don't let it carry over. You let it fuel you, and you let it drive you.

"To me," the OU head coach said, "if we just get incrementally better, don't turn the ball over, play physical and play with great effort, everything else that has been good continues to get better."

FOX college football analyst Joel Klatt assessed the game video from the Oklahoma-Tennessee game last weekend and commented on the Sooners' floundering defense on his weekly show this week.

"I watched (OU's) offensive film on Sunday," Klatt said. "It was gross. It was gross...their film is a disaster. This offense has to go back to square one."

"Every single piece of their offense was bad," he said. "The game plan? Bad. Execution? Bad. The fundamentals? Bad. Every single piece of it. It's wild what they're doing. The schematics are totally off."

With this many things going wrong, Klatt believes the bigger piece of the problem may rest with the coaching staff. "As a coach, you have to understand two truths about the film you watch. What you see on that film are either one of two things: coaching or allowing," he said.

"At OU, there is a lot of bad football being played. If you're telling me that everything you coach them to do is not being done on the film, then that's a problem. If they are doing what is being coached, then that's a problem."

Any way you look at it, Oklahoma's problems on offense have rapidly grown to epidemic proportions, And with the myriad of issues to address, it doesn't appear that things are going to get appreciably better anytime soon.

Here's the ultimate kick in the pants: With the brutal conference schedule that sits dead ahead, a winning season is starting to seem like a stretch.