What did Sooners work on in bye week to shore up rest of season?

In Bob Stoops' reign as head coach at Oklahoma, you didn't want to play the Sooners coming off a bye week.

In Stoops 18 seasons at Oklahoma, his teams were 19-4 coming off a bye week. Brent Venables is 2-0 coming out of a bye week, but that perfect record could be in jeopardy this time around with No. 1 Texas being the opponent following the first of two bye weeks in the Sooners' 2024 schedule. OU has a second bye week ahead of a home game with Alabama on Nov. 23.

The week off following Oklahoma's 27-21 road win on Sept. 28 at Auburn came at a very good time for the Sooners, who had 11 players out with injuries for the Auburn game, including the team's top five wide receivers. Oklahoma hopes to get several of those injured players back for the Texas game.

The biggest concern, besides all the health issues, was getting the Sooners' sputtering offense to operate on all cylinders. The offense has been limited in what it can do because of injuries to key personnel on the offensive line and at wide receiver and the learning curve that comes with the changeover at quarterback and going with a true freshman at the position.

"We've gotta get healthy," defensive coordinator Zac Alley said last week. "We've gotta get our guys into recovery and get them ready for obviously a huge game (against) No. 1 Texas. We gotta do a good job of working on Oklahoma and getting better offensively, defensively and on special teams."

We have to get better, Venables said to reporters after practice one day last week, but it's hard to do that by doing walk-throughs for three or four days. The Sooners probably could have used some lighter work in the off week due to all the physical ails, but Venables and the Sooner coaches had them in pads and doing a lot of what the OU head coach likes to call "good on good" drills.

"If you're gonna get exposed," Venables said, " you want (guys) to get exposed out here on the practice field.

True freshman quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr. has shown unwavering demeanor in his two games in the starting role and he appeared remarkably unfazed by the huge SEC game-day environment at Auburn.

"He's super consistent, , calm, really cerebral," Venables said about his young freshman quarterback, " (and) he's super coachable." The extra week to work on the little things and help add to his comfort and confidence is definitely a good thing as the Sooners prepare for what has to be their biggest challenge of the season and will go a long way toward defining what we can expect out of this group for the remainder of what is playing out as a very difficult and trying season.