After a much-needed bye week in what has been a highly discouraging season for the Oklahoma football program, the Sooners are back at it on a game week and preparing for No. 7-ranked and College Football Playoff contender Alabama.
The 5-5 Sooners have two regular-season games remaining, and both are against ranked opponents. If OU doesn't win at least one of the next two games, the team will be enjoying the holiday bowl season at home for the first time in the last 26 seasons.
Aside from the blinding flash of the obvious -- the offensive coordinator hire -- about the only question remaining for Oklahoma this season is how the Sooners are going to finish it out. Will we see the same old lackluster, error-prone performance from the offense we've seen for most of the season, or is there enough pride and fight left in OU Team 130 to finish out the next two games in a blaze of glory and even snag a win or two?
The odds are clearly against Oklahoma at this point, but stranger things have happened. At the very least, we hope to see a couple of competitive games and not one-sided contests like occurred against Texas and South Carolina -- a couple of blowout losses that were effectively over by halftime.
A key factor in what we see out of the Sooners this week and next rests at quarterback. Jackson Arnold began the season as a former five-star recruit and the Sooners' heir apparent and designated quarterback of the future. That status is now in serious question largely due to Arnold's inability to protect the football. Case in point: Oklahoma is credited with 18 giveaways this season. Arnold is responsible for 11 of those (eight lost fumbles and three interceptions).
The former National Gatorade Player of the Year fumbled three times in the loss to Missouri two weeks ago. The Sooners lost two of them, and the final one was scooped up and returned for the winning touchdown.
Who will be at quarterback when Oklahoma takes the field on Saturday night against Alabama is probably up for debate. Both Arnold and true freshman Michael Hawkins Jr. have seen action in the starting role this season with Arnold regaining the role after Hawkins turned the ball over three times in the first quarter against South Carolina.
"They learn from all of it," Brent Venables said about his two quarterbacks during his coach's show on Monday night. "Certainly it's not a lot of fun when you have to teach through failure, but it's the best opportunity to learn and grow and improve."
Arnold looked like he might be coming into his own with good performances in relief of Hawkins against South Carolina and the next to outings against Maine and at Ole Miss ( a game the Sooners' led at halftime). But the turnover troubles for Arnold returned against Missouri, a game OU could have and probably should have won.
Arnold knew he didn't play his best in the Missouri game. He immediately went to the game film to assess the mistakes he made. "Obviously, you never want a game to end like that," he said after the OU practice on Monday. "I can't fumble like that, can't turn the ball over, but at the same time, we've got two more games. We've got two more great teams we've got to play, so we've got to put it behind us and move forward."
The starting job is probably Arnold's to lose the next two games, but I would suspect the leash is going to be pretty short as might his time as an Oklahoma Sooner if he doesn't show some upside and improvement with two weeks to learn, grow and move on from what happened against Missouri.
Whatever happens over the next two games, Venables and Arnold are both going to have decisions to make after the season about the future quarterback situation at Oklahoma.