Brent Venables confident in Jackson Arnold after Dillon Gabriel departure

An injury to QB Dillon Gabriel thrust Jackson Arnold into action for Oklahoma last weekend in Provo. The true freshman backup took it in stride, though, by leading the Sooners to a win over BYU.

Following the 31-24 victory, Brent Venables was proud of Arnold for stepping in how he did. It was clear that it was his fifth collegiate appearance but he was glad to see that nothing about his lack of experience affected him too much in helping Oklahoma finish off the win.

“I mean it sounds easy now. But, again, Jackson is not a nervous, anxious – might be anxious in overconfidence, speeding stuff up or something like that. But he has put the work in,” said Venables. “The moment wasn’t too big for him. The players around him? They knew that too.

“Like I told them in the locker room, unfortunate for Dillon but what a great example. You’re the backup quarterback, true-freshman – so sometimes they’re young and immature. Jackson’s not,” Venables continued. “It’d be easy, in week whatever this is since we started fall camp, to not be prepared for the moment here late in the season. ‘Ah, I haven’t played yet’, ‘They’re going to redshirt me’. That’s not how he operates.”

After Gabriel suffered an upper body injury against the Cougars, Arnold came in and burned his redshirt in the second half. In those snaps, he went 5-of-9 (55.6%) for 33 yards while also rushing eight times for 24 more.

He himself didn’t score but Arnold put together a short scoring drive on their second to last possession of the game. He had done something similar on their previous drive had it not ended in a missed field goal. Pair that one offensive score with some help from the Sooner defense and it was enough to help Oklahoma come out with the win and put a victory under Arnold’s belt.

Still, Venables wasn’t too surprised with his quarterback’s success. He does and is everything that the staff wants him to be which, in turn, gave them a lot to be happy about last weekend.

“He’s a winner, he has got tremendous courage. A belief in himself, a belief in the guys around him, and trust in the system. A great job just executing a lot of little things, making it look easy,” said Venables. “Really, really good and that was a lot of fun.”