While Sooner players take brunt of criticism, it's coaches who own accountability

This has been a season oversoaked in disappointment for Oklahoma football fans, and as those who chase storms for a living will often tell you, it's likely to get worse before it gets better.

Not exactly a comforting notion for a fan base that is far more used to being on the winning side and the one delivering disappointment on its opponents.

There is no sugarcoating this issue. Team 130 of Oklahoma football has not played well enough to win games in a conference as strong top to bottom as the SEC. And that is a declaration that will never be satisfactory for a program with the high standards and the historical success and national acclaim that Oklahoma has experienced.

There was high skepticism even two years ago when it first became known that Oklahoma was moving its conference affiliation to the bigger and stronger SEC whether the Sooners would be ready and able to compete at its accustomed high level in their new league. Only, the concern at that time was much different than the trouble OU is experiencing now in its inaugural season in the conference considered by most experts to be the best in college football.

Offense was never an OU concern, until it was

When Venables became head coach of the proud and storied Oklahoma football program ahead of the 2022 season, his chief charge, aside from continuing OU's winning tradition, was to turn around a Sooner defense that statistically had become one of the worst in college football. Venables' reputation as a defensive mastermind had preceded him to the job. There was not the same concern about the OU offense, which had solidified its standing as "Quarterback U" and one of the top offensive units in all of college football under Venables' predecessor, Lincoln Riley.

All offense and no defense was Oklahoma's calling card as it prepared to become part of the rough and ready world of SEC football. What was not anticipated was that in addressing the defensive issues, the once powerful OU offensive machine would blow a gasket and begin hemorraging oil profusely.

While the Sooners' defense has improved dramatically under Venables, the Oklahoma offense is the worst it has been in close to three decades. Barring what would be a pair of major upsets in the Sooners' two remaining games, Oklahoma will finish the 2024 season with a 5-7 overall record and just 1-7 in SEC conference games, something that hasn't happened at Oklahoma since the 1998 season by an OU team that wasn't nearly as talented as what Venables has to work with.

Granted, this year's Oklahoma team has had to battle through an inordinate number of injuries and a patchwork offensive line that has badly underperformed all season. The injury report for last Saturday's game at Missouri included the names of 17 Sooner players, and for most of the season the Sooners have been without the services of their top five wide receivers.

Injuries happen to all college teams, and you have to be able to deal with it. That's why competitive depth is so important and something that Venables has emphasized from day one. When a man goes down, it is both a need and an opportunity for the next man to step up. That has been missing for Oklahoma this season, and it has cost the Sooners dearly.

The quarterback play, with former five-star recruit Jackson Arnold and true freshman Michael Hawkins Jr. both taking turns in the starting role, has been inconsistent and largely underproductive.

The Sooners have played at their best in recent seasons when the offense is balanced between run and pass. Unfortunately, both aspects have been off kilter and out of sync practically the entire season. The run game has done better lately, but the aerial attack has sputtered with the team's top receivers sidelined. Against Missouri, for example, the longest completed pass was just 14 yards, and for the season the Sooners have completed just a dozen or so passes for longer than 20 yards.

There is little question that the level of competition and the talent and skill level of the SEC teams Oklahoma has gone up against this season is probably the strongest the Sooners have faced in a single season in program history. Because of that, the margin of error between winning and losing in a conference like the SEC is razor thin. If you make mistakes and don't execute the fundamentals with discipline and precision, you will get punished for it.

Sooners' struggles go beyond the players

It's easy to point the finger at injuries as the primary cause of OU's offensive struggles, but that doesn't explain the even bigger problem of lack of ball security. all of the mental mistakes and poor decisions by the players and, yes, the coaching staff.

The players are the ones who actually play the game, but it is Venables and his staff who are responsible, and ultimately accountable, for deciding who ultimately gets on the field and preparing and putting them in the best position to succeed and making many of the in-game decisions that determine the outcome of plays, possessions and ultimately the game.

After the last two conference losses, both games Oklahoma could have won, Venables began his postgame press briefing praising his players for how hard they played and not giving up, while also adding the disclaimer, "Wasn't good enough...We (the coaches) have to do a better job of preparing them."

Venables readily acknowledges that there is always a coaching piece in every improvement process. "What you put on the field is a reflection of what you are coached," the Sooner head coach said earlier this season in one of his weekly press conferences. "But at the same time, you have to take what we practice, what we did right at practice, and we've got to take it to game day."

Venables is 21-15 in his three seasons as head coach of the Sooners and likely looking at his second losing season. He is just 1-6 against ranked teams and will end the 2024 regular season against two more. He was a popular hire, given all the success he had leading one of the college football's top defenses at Clemson and his success as part of Bob Stoops' OU coaching staff for 13 seasons,

While there was never a question about Venables' defensive mastery, there were plenty of critics who questioned whether he was the right hire to lead the Oklahoma program. That fire is being fanned again, by fans and experts alike, given the Sooners second disappointing season out of the last three.

Venables' job is probably safe for at least one more season, not only because of his $44 million buyout but also because athletic director Joe Castiglione is not one to pull the plug early on someone hired on his watch and whom he truly believes in. Venables' future at OU, though, will be largely predicated on his making some hard decisions regarding his coaching staff, particularly in hiring the right person as the new offensive coordinator. And that should just be a starting point.