What Texas fans need to know about Oklahoma’s offseason

With the recent hires of linebackers coach Nate Dreiling (formerly defensive coordinator for Utah State) and analyst Wes Goodwin (formerly defensive coordinator for Clemson), the Oklahoma Sooners have mostly finished up their offseason’s big moves. Hiring a new General Manager for football operations remains unfinished along with surviving/maximizing the spring transfer portal, but we have a fair idea now of who will be the principal actors in the 2025 Oklahoma Sooners football season.

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Brent Venables will still be head coach, thanks to a generous extension he was awarded by athletic director Joe Castiglione after a 10-3 season in 2023 in which Oklahoma beat Texas, lost Bedlam, and missed out on the Big 12 Championship game. Last year’s 6-7 (2-6 in the SEC) stumble lead to an overhaul on offense which will actually define the upcoming season moreso than the bluster around defense, but there’s been a lot occurring north of the Red River.

It’s always good to take a peak up there and see what’s being assembled for the annual war in the Cotton Bowl next October.

The offseason carousel on defense

Shortly after Oklahoma lost its bowl game against Navy, defensive coordinator Zac Alley was announced to be leaving Norman for the same job and title at West Virginia under Rich Rodriguez. This was a stunning announcement since Alley…

• Had been at Oklahoma for only one season,
• was a protege of Venables dating back to his time as a grad assistant at Clemson,
• left for a job at a smaller and less prestigious school with ostensibly less opportunity to spring-board him into future opportunities.

After this notable setback, the Sooners made the fascinating decision to allow themselves to be used by Jim Knowles in his very public negotiation for a new defensive coordinator job that ended when he accepted a massive $9.3 million dollar contract from James Franklin and Penn State. For a few weeks, Sooner fans were encouraged to believe it might be possible that the title-winning defensive coordinator would come to Norman and take over the coordination of a talented defensive unit from noted defensive coach Venables so the Sooner head man could be more of a CEO over the rest of the Oklahoma operation.

Shortly after that pursuit went bust, it was announced that Dreiling and Goodwin would be joining the Sooner family. Texas fans remember Goodwin as the guy who parlayed NFL talent at multiple positions in Clemson into 300+ rushing yards by the Longhorn running backs in the playoffs. Dreiling came up under Jerry Kill at New Mexico State and was the interim head coach (promoted suddenly from defensive coordinator after Blake Anderson was fired) for Utah State in 2024 in a tough season. His plan had been to rebound with Arkansas State, who named him defensive coordinator earlier this offseason, before Oklahoma swooped in to steal him.

Dreiling will coach linebackers under Venables’ and Goodwin’s watchful eyes while the head man takes on direct responsibility for the overall unit.

Strong statement from Brent Venables:

“I have reflected on all facets of our program over the past several weeks. Since I was hired as head coach, we have carefully assembled the defensive personnel and scheme that is suited to compete at the highest level, and we’ve built a…

— George Stoia III (@GeorgeStoia) February 1, 2025

All of this is mostly just theater. Venables has been running the defense for the entirety of his time in Norman and very few of the serious question marks around the 2025 Sooners center around defense in general or any specific defensive positions. Oklahoma does need to replace star linebacker Danny Stutsman and develop young talents at cornerback into emergent skill players, but those are all reasonable undertakings.

The real intrigue is on offense.

A total rebuild on offense

The real offseason move for Oklahoma was hiring 29-year old offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle and poaching his last Washington State quarterback John Mateer to join him. This was particularly meaningful after Oklahoma’s former 5-star recruit and presumed franchise quarterback Jackson Arnold was blamed for early season struggles, benched, and quickly transferred to Auburn once the season ended.

Mateer is arguably the more meaningful addition than Arbuckle or any defensive assistants. His compensation for 2025 is probably similar to Arbuckle’s and subsequent seasons won’t matter if the Sooners don’t win next season. Last year with the Cougars, Mateer had the following stats:

• 224-347 passing for 3,139 yards at 9.0 ypa with 29 touchdowns and seven interceptions.
• 178 carries for 826 rushing yards at 4.6 ypc with 15 rushing touchdowns.

Take out the lost yardage from his 31 sacks (yes, that’s a lot and a sack rate of 8.2%) and it’s 147 carries for 1,021 yards at 6.9 ypc with 15 rushing touchdowns. Those are outstanding rushing numbers for an Air Raid quarterback.

On the positive side for Oklahoma, Mateer is obviously accustomed to playing some hero ball and averaged 31.5 pass attempts and 12.3 carries per game last season for a total of 43.8 plays while producing real stats in both the run game and pass game. That may be hard to replicate against SEC defenders but he’s clearly a durable guy who can handle a heavy decision-making burden.

On the negative side, he has the typical hero tendency to hold the ball and eat sacks, will be facing SEC pass-rushers next season, and Oklahoma may or not have found either of the two solutions which make it easier to protect a quarterback.

The obvious solution is with a topnotch offensive line. Oklahoma still has Bill Bedenbaugh coaching up the line and return three different linemen who played tackle a year ago while adding 5-star freshman Michael Fasusi (likely starter) and FCS transfer Derek Simmons to that room. It’s reasonable to expect some improvement but the days of rolling through future NFL players at either tackle spot are over.

The less obvious solution is not a mobile quarterback, as many fans think. Mobile quarters often exacerbate sack issues by trying to hold onto the ball and make plays with their legs. The real solution is to be able to get the ball out quickly to the primary read on a given play. You achieve this in part by creating run/pass conflicts but, above all else, by having true threats on the outside who can get open against cornerbacks playing in man coverage.

The last point is why the Venables tenure at Oklahoma has not gone terribly well to date. The 2024 Sooners had zero outside receivers worth mentioning after a rash of injuries destroyed the room. In 2023 Nic Anderson and Jalil Farooq couldn’t match the heyday of the Lincoln Riley era but still combined to catch 83 balls for 1,492 yards and 12 touchdowns on a 10-win team. Those two were both injured in 2024 and now Anderson is at LSU and Farooq at Maryland. In 2022 the Sooners had Marvin Mims on the outside catching 54 balls for 1,083 yards and six touchdowns but did not yet have a defense.

For this upcoming season, the Sooners added FCS outside receivers Keontez Lewis and Javonnie Gibson as well as slot receivers Isaiah Sategna from Arkansas and Josiah Martin from Cal. After the transfer portal shakeups there’s no one on the roster who plays outside and is the same caliber of threat as Washington State’s Kyle Williams, much less CeeDee Lamb or even Mims.

At tight end the Sooners lost the top end of the depth chart, such as it was, and have added preferred walk-on John Locke from Louisiana Tech, and Will Huggins who’s recently from Pittsburgh State but previously was with the Kansas Jayhawks for four years. During those four years he registered just one catch… a 20-yard touchdown against the Oklahoma Sooners. Theoretically a mobile quarterback would give the Sooners an opportunity to field a dangerous receiving tight end or be able to get big and bully teams with a good blocker, but they may struggle to find a player who can even take the field against SEC competition.

Ultimately, hullabaloo around coordinators and quarterbacks distract from the central issue in Norman. The Sooners are no longer powered by future NFL wide receivers on the perimeter as they were for the Riley era and indeed most of the Bob Stoops era as well. It’s difficult for any school competing nationally in modern college football to win without NFL talent on the perimeter and certainly for a school that’s a bit removed from any major talent centers aside from the skill weapon factories in DFW.

They’re also now bereft of the sorts of ancillary infrastructure pieces to play inside at tight end or fullback which long defined Sooner offense and made them different from your typical Air Raid team.

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This will likely be Venables’ last season in Norman and for all the noise that has dominated headlines around the program this offseason it’ll ultimately be because he didn’t protect Oklahoma’s status as a top offensive school and magnet for Texas high school skill talent.