Brent Venables raves over Oklahoma QB Jackson Arnold's leadership

Jackson Arnold is ready to go for Oklahoma in 2024 and head coach Brent Venables raved about his quarterback’s leadership through spring practice.

Stepping up as the starter is a big ask, but Arnold was recruited for this situation. He took a season to sit back and learn from veteran Dillon Gabriel and now it’s his turn.

So far, so good for Arnold under Venables’ guidance.

“A great leader,” Venables said on College Sports Radio on Sirius XM. “Just has a different level of comfort, from a leadership standpoint. He has great energy. Competitively, he’s incredibly tough and demanding from himself and gets the best out of his teammates. If he has a bad play, it doesn’t affect him. You move on quickly, those things jumped out to me as much as anything but there’s a level of anticipation, he throws guys open. 

“He can run, he’s got a great feel in the pocket. Great presence there, keeps his eyes downfield, all the things that you want from a quarterback. The consistency is the biggest thing that I’ve seen from him and getting the chemistry and the cohesion down with the entire offensive unit. He’s done a great job of leading the way from that standpoint.”

In 2023, Arnold played in seven games, primarily as the backup to Dillon Gabriel. On 69 pass attempts, Arnold completed 63.8 percent of his passes and threw for 563 yards. He also had four touchdowns to three interceptions. On top of that, he had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown on the ground.

As a member of the Class of 2023, Arnold was a five-star recruit out of Denton (Texas) Guyer, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. He was the No. 2 overall prospect in the state, the No. 4 quarterback in the class and the No. 8 overall prospect in the class.

Going into 2024, Oklahoma has a seemingly low over-under win total projection of 7.5 games. However, as  Sooner Scoop’s Eddie Radosevich explained, that may come down to Jackson Arnold replacing Dillon Gabriel.

“I do. I think just having somebody back there at quarterback, and somebody as experienced as Dillon Gabriel, I think that would probably count for, I don’t know what the number is, but one [game], maybe a half, maybe even two,” Radosevich said.

“So all of a sudden, you’re looking at an over/under of 9, 9.5, maybe 8.5-9. I think that, you know, it’s probably not as shocking as when you see the No. 7. Around here, that’s going to get people fired.”