They said OU's sideline was one of the worst they've seen. Players cussing at coaches and vice versa. Players arguing with each other. No discipline. They said it looks like BV had no control.

For those of you saying fire BV now, why? BV has to find a new OC and OL during the offseason. If we hired a new HC, he too would have to find a new OC and OL. BV did win 10 games last season with a different OC, OL, QB, and healthy receivers, oh, and he beat Texas too.

I say BV needs one last chance to get all this fixed in the offseason, if he struggles in 2025, it's over.

He took over a team that had no pulse on defense and turned it around, going 6-6 (sans bowl game), then he improved to 10-2, lost his OC, QB, and OL, but the season still looked promising, even going into the SEC until receivers and linemen started dropping like flies. Once the wheels started to come off the offense, SL was fired, which gave us hope, but now we know that a new OC has to be found and the OL has to get fixed in the offseason or BV and the OU team will struggle next season.

BV is in charge, ultimately, the product on the field is his responsibility, if he can't dramatically turn things around in 2025 then OU has no choice then to look for new leadership.

One last thing: All the money OU would lose by firing BV and finding a new HC could be used for NIL.

This is pretty dang awesome…
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There need to be at least 10 O Linemen that we could reliably use as starters that develop as we go thru the off-season. I know things look bleak right now, but I see a little light at the end of the tunnel…

As I see it, the guys that are developing this year that can fit into that 10 are Howland, Ozeata and Bates. It’s not helping a lot this year, but at least Howland and Ozeata are showing a lot of improvement and another off season will be huge for them.

Sexton, Taylor and Everett (think he can come back) are solid as starters.

Hopefully, EPL, Brooks and Autry-Dent can fit in with more off-season development.

As I see it, we can be pretty picky in the portal and take only the best possible LT and maybe a mauler at guard to really spice up the competition. Thats not really a wholesale change. And it allows the incoming freshmen time to work in to that top 10

No position groups today. We not even doing 10 total thoughts. We are gonna discuss the good, the bad and the ugly. Don't worry...the former will be much shorter than the latter.

THE GOOD:
Here's a bold take - X Robinson is the biggest playmaker on THIS team. We can't seem to throw the ball down the field. And even if our OC loves to feature the TE (we'll discuss later), our true freshman RB ran with a level of physicality and the savvy necessary to get in and out of traffic in the SEC. Why it took so long for him to get his shot (we'll discuss later) is surprising, but he showed well. In fact, in one game, he exhibited the exact skills you want in lead back. Idc about stars and faves or NiL. That kid looked the part and offered the 1st offensive weapon that could be a mis match in the SEC.

I also think it's important to speak on the pup Eli for another really strong performance. He got picked on a few times and was $$$ aside from the late TD..Where he's in PERFECT position. Other players who i actually thgt were good were: RMT, Kip. Our two AAs had some very good plays, but they also both killed us on TDs. Our DTs (whilst being held A LOT) also played well.

THE BAD: Lets start with an offensive scheme that looked to be working very well in the first half yet a rb only ran the ball 5 times. That's a terrible stat and makes zero sense in a game where we want to control the ball and help our qb. However, I am equally unimpressed with our defensive scheme. We were very multiple in our defensive fronts and seemed to confuse Pyne at the LOS, but our dbs stayed off and soft. It didn't hurt us much the 1st 3qrts but when it mattered we LITERALLY gave Pyne clean pictures pre snap allowing him to have good timing on passing downs. What makes it (ALMOST UGLY) worse is on the other side of the ball, they're man across. They're bumping every play. In the 4th qrt when it really matter...and all game for that matter jfa saw ghosts and was consistently flustered bcuz he NEVER got a clean picture. Bcuz no one was "open" presnap he didn't have any confidence deciding where to throw the ball..and so he held it and..well we know how that turned out.
Featuring your TE with packages - BAD
Never running a WR screen vs man - BAD
5 playing so many snaps - BAD (Im talking from coaching lens..we'll discuss his "play" later)
Our LB rotation is bad. They arbitrarily rotate everyone in and out and in key moments I want 10 on the field. As luck would have it, it looks like Sammy O is the backer in on our scoop and score but I prefer Kip in the game but is was 24 and 11s "turn" - BAD
Our physicality is - BAD
Mental toughness - BAD
Football IQ - BAD
Our pass scheme is also BAD. We can name half the oline as "not SEC good" but I still feel like the way we expect them to play knowing what we have is - BAD
While we're at it..lets talk about getting 2 of our "best wrs" back and not having plays designed to get them involved (some of those TE packages 😅). Granted...Burks fumbles on an angle route out of the back field, but we need MUCH more play design for our wrs or wrs won't wanna come here..I wouldnt.
Theres probably 10 other bads I could consider. Please share if you feel compelled. I'm headed over to the UGLY

THE UGLY:
jfa is bad. Tools are really good. Mental aspect and execution are bad. Maybe as bad as ANY at OU since 98. He's had 1 game ALL SEASON with 200 passing yards and it was our SEC end of season FCS opponent. But specifically in this game...his whole mentality is ugly. I said it on the Pod and I'll say it here. He's not good enough to hot dog. JJF dials up a zone read and they blitz back side safety. He's literally got NO ONE on the entire side of the field aside from the dbs covering our wrs. jfa pulls it (good read) and is out the gate. Instead of squaring up and attacking the field...he casually heads for the sideline like we're OU circa '17 or '18 and scoring is an after thought. Idc what anyone says...I caught it wk 2 of the season when he did it. He did it again last night. This offense has to scrap and claw for any momentum, let alone TDs. He's too good a "athlete" to hot dog out of bounce. For the record..we kick a fg, but he also misses Hester on a scramble that could have been a TD...or maybe it's the drive he misses Burks on the over route. Either way...takes points off the board. AND you gotta ask yourself..given the same play would Hawk have hot dogged or potentially SCORED 🤷🏽‍♂️. Let's get these out the way:
Ball security - UGLY
Pocket awareness - UGLY
Accuracy - UGLY
Game awareness - UGLY - Aside from several zero yard routes to 10 🤦🏾‍♂️ on the last play of the game he scrambles and with 2 seconds can slide and potentially set us up for a hail Mary by falling down...he doesn't. Again, not trying to rail the young man, but i love my team and he is rumored to have secured $1milly and i love that for his family, but I expect more at that price point.
Sorry, but I give Hawk another shot and if benching jfa again means he leaves...maybe it's for the best and we find someone who can throw for more than 74yards in a game...which btw is UGLY in its own right.
Jfa - it aint personal man. But you haven't played well. You know it. I know it. The fan base knows it. But it's not all your fault. Your OCs gameplan was UGLY. There's no good reason why we didn't lean on the run or throw it up to our wrs 1 v 1 in man coverage.
Also 5 😬 short and sweet - UGLY
19 🫣 He didn't play well. In fact him falling down on Luther's big catch is probably an INT if he simply keeps his feet. The play alone is UGLY and I think he'd admit his overall play was not good enough. We still believe in him though.

Last UGLY is the entirety of our culture and attitude this season and that falls squarely on the shoulders of our HBC and CEO (CFB is absolutely like running a Fortune 500 company at a school like OU and if they arent looking at it that way...they're doing it wrong). I don't want BV fired this season and I still feel that way (let me have my own personal feelings 😊) but I'm smart enough to know that ugly losses at home to Bama and at LSU ABSOLUTELY could cost BV his job. A good away win a Mizzou. Playing pups who are improving. Some Sooner Magic in the 4th quarter. An OC search to distract everyone for the remainder of the season. BV was gonna be okay. Sooner Magic even showed up and we got a scoop in score. But we literally found a way to lose...and in such dramatic fashion. It hurts his chances...100%

Sorry so long fellas. All good if it was TL;DR
Long story short...we stink

😩

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Sawyer Robertson - Baylor QB, 6’4” 220lbs

Currently thrown for almost 1800 yds, 17TD’s against 4INT’s 84.2 QBR
258 rushing yds and another 4TD’s on the ground.

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Its #11. There are plenty of opportunities for him to make throws, but the kid is terrified. He needs to transfer to a FCS school and we need to buy a QB this offseason.

I've noticed a few posts suggesting that our defense isn't as good as we think it is. Look, I get it, we're all frustrated. But the D is far from a problem, and is, in fact, pretty dang good.

For those that like efficiency measures, FPI has our defensive efficiency at #12 nationally.

What I'm taking a deeper dive into today is turnovers. Both traditional, and on downs.

Here are some facts to chew on:

• In 6 SEC contests, we've committed 14 traditional turnovers.
• 3 have been DST touchdowns. Of the remaining 11, an astonishing 10 have occurred at the 50, or in our own territory.
• Of the 10 post-turnover drives that started in our territory, the defense has allowed 36 points.
• The opponent did not score on the post-turnover drive that started in their territory.
• In those same 6 games, we've turned the ball over on downs 12 times.
• Half of those resulted in the opponent taking over at the 50 or in our territory. The defense allowed 13 points on those six post-turnover drives.
• Of the six post-turnover drives where the opponent started in their own territory, the defense has only allowed 7 points.
• So, combined, that's 16 drives where the defense had to stop an opponent that began in our territory, and resultingly gave up 49 points. ~3 points per drive.
• And, combined, that's 7 drives where the defense had the benefit of starting on the right side of the field, which resulted in 7 points. Exactly 1 point per drive.
• We only have 28 points off of opponent turnovers, 15 of which have been directly scored by our defense.

If we were to strip out turnovers, and the possessions immediately following them, here are the scores to our SEC games this year:

• Tennessee (W, 15-12)
• Auburn (L, 16-21)
• Texas (L, 3-20)
• South Carolina (W, 9-8)
• Ole Miss (L, 7-26)
• Mizzou (W, 13-7)

The defense isn't perfect (would love a few more TOs forced, more consistent pressure off the edge, and a lot less of at least one guy in our secondary), but it's been playoff caliber.

Notes on Robinson, injuries, Theo Wease and Jalil Farooq.

As I continue to recover from this horrible loss I had a thought this morning and figured I'd share.

We all know the SL hire turned out to be the wrong one. But was it also an indicator of the JA issues we now see? The overriding reason given (and parroted by the media) was "let's keep things consistent for JA", "we don't want our young QB to have to learn a new system". It occurs to me now in hindsight that may have been a sign. QBs learn new offenses all the time and they had a full off-season to implement it if an outside OC hire was made.

I really like JA and still believe he's a talented QB, but he just wasn't ready for the adversity of limited WR talent and a struggling OL. When the adversity came, his "football IQ" suffered. Maybe the decision to be easy on him and not give him a new scheme to learn was a foreshadow of things to come.

I know, hindsight is 20/20, as they say.

I know there has been lots of talk and rumblings about firing BV and bringing in someone new from the top down. I will admit I responded on X Saturday night to someone and said it was time to hit the reset button from the top down. There are a lot of areas you have to admit there have been improvement with the program, but I know the wins are not coming fast enough and the improvement in some areas have left a lot to be desired. Heck as fans we can even question are the best players getting the amount of game reps they deserve??? I do think there has to be a ton of soul searching has to be done in a lot of areas for sure. There have been some ugly losses and there is NO DOUBT about it, but I’m going to list a couple records here of two very successful coaches and what their first 4 years looked liked-
Coach #1
4-3
9-5
6-7
10-4
Coach #2
6-5
6-6
7-5
6-6
This is pre NIL of course, but I’m 41 yrs old and these are maybe two of the most successful coaches I have seen since the mid 2000’s outside of Bob Stoops.

I’m not trying to justify what this season has been because it has been a mess and embarrassing offensively for us as fans, and for sure for these players and this team. Just based on the records above though do we as fans need to pump the breaks a tad and see if BV can go get him a good O Coordinator, hold this recruiting class together, and hit a couple massive additions in the portal and turn this ship around?

The records above are the records of Dabo Swinney and Nick Saban and what their first 4 years looked like of coaching. I even looked at Saban’s run at LSU and it wasn’t until year 4 before he got things turned in the right direction.

Who would you like to see OU hire as the next head coach if it where to happen this season.

What players should we be keeping a close eye on for a potential decommitment? I know coaches across America are blowing the up to the phones of all our commits. This has happened with Florida Stare and we are next.

Personally, I feel like Cortez Mills and Michael Fasusi won’t stick in the class.

I've been talking with some people close to the program.

First on BV: Donors are starting the rumblings about a HC search. Nothing definitive yet, just rumblings. I'm under the impression he will get a chance to find an OC, but if things are not going well, even mid-season 2025 a change could be made. I'm expecting him to at least finish out the 2025 season, but his seat is like a volcano about to erupt going in to the 2025 season.

On the OC search: Let me just start out by saying the donors and Joe C. are allotting a big sum to hire an established OC. First, yes the Will Stein momentum has been fading, but has recently picked back up slightly. Joe C. And BV have been in talks with his agent more this week. Marion, Kinney, Korn, and Kotelnicki are out of the running. Below I'll give my short list based on what I've heard:

1. Will Stein
2. Joe Craddock
3. Dan Mullen
4. Collin Klein

I've heard rumors of another one but have not been able to confirm. Will Stein is at the top of their list, but I give it a 25% chance. Joe Craddock is the bet I'd make at this time.

Bonus: Joe Jon has not been considered for the OC job since Seth left. He's basically been coaching to save his job on the future staff, but I've heard since tonight, he will be promptly fired at the end of the season.

On Joe C.: Donors are not happy with the BV hire so far and the lack luster performance of both the Football and Men's Basketball respectively. If BV is fired he might be replaced as well. Those are just initial rumblings, but noteworthy in my opinion. Most want to keep Joe C. Until he retires but he may not make it or be forced to retire.

Haven’t seen this mentioned yet but what about…. Cam Rising?

He’s a veteran who has played a ton of games. Was originally committed to OU. Is really tough. Has never been prone to turnovers. Could be a one year bridge QB to either Hawkins or the next QB recruit. I realize there is an injury concern but there is no reason to think he won’t be 100% going into spring.

More than anything - the guy knows how to win. He won 2 conf titles at Utah. He’ll be a good leader and won’t shit away a game when it’s there for the taking

Here's your AI summary of the postgame pod from Thune and Coach Clinton:


The life of an OU football fan has taken a harsh turn this fall. It’s the dead of night in a Holiday Inn Express in Oak Grove, Missouri, the backdrop fittingly disheveled and weary, much like the fans and the team they cheer for every weekend. Once a powerhouse, Oklahoma’s football team is now firmly entrenched in a losing season, and after yet another defeat, it's time to question everything—coaches, players, and the direction of the program.

The Missouri Meltdown

On a chilling night in Columbia, Missouri, the Sooners managed new ways to dishevel their hopes, reminiscent of the fall from grace seen in programs like Nebraska. This time, the Missouri Tigers snatched a victory from the jaws of defeat, leaving the Sooners with no clear path forward. By the end of the game, it felt like rock bottom for OU, a point that’s hard to digest for both the team and its supporters.

In a game where several fans had stood firm behind head coach Brent Venables, the closing moments against Missouri may have shifted opinions drastically. With a schedule leading into matchups against Alabama and LSU, it seems the road ahead only gets steeper for the Sooners.

The Unfolding Crisis in Oklahoma

The podcast from the Holiday Inn perfectly summarized the current state of OU football, throwing light on the cracks within the foundation. The Missouri loss highlighted persistent issues: a lack of offensive consistency, turnovers, and tactical naiveté. The Sooners managed to convert their modest 23-16 lead into a 30-23 downfall, riddled with questionable plays and missed opportunities, an unfortunate recurring theme.

The Offense Struggles to Shine

Under the faint glow of any positive takeaways, the offense struggled. Oklahoma’s offense has been inefficient, with frequent lapses occurring in the most critical phases of the game. Adding fire to this inferno, questions about starting quarterback Jackson Arnold and the direction at quarterback for the rest of the season run rampant. His performances have not been what Sooners fans hoped for, raising foundational questions about the future leadership of the offense.

Defensive Breakdowns Continue

Defensively, Oklahoma presented a dichotomy—showing strength in the first half only to falter as the game progressed. The defense conceded to Drew Pyne and the Missouri offense during a critical juncture, a tough sight for any fan holding out hope for victory.

Coaching and Culture in Question

The coaching staff hasn't been spared scrutiny either. Fans have started to compare Brent Venables to past OU coaches who failed to meet the glory days' standards. Managing talents like Arnold and navigating the impending recruit classes remain daunting tasks for Venables as such.

In practice, the decision-making process that determines who sees the field has been questioned. Players like Xavier Robinson, Jacob Jordan, and Eli Bowen have shown tremendous potential yet have been underutilized in favor of others who fail to deliver, indicating a need for reevaluation from the coaching staff.

Looking Ahead to an Uncertain Future

So where does Oklahoma go from here? With a bye week ahead, followed by games against football giants Alabama and LSU, the Sooners need to regroup and reassess. Who will lead as quarterback remains a puzzle, with Venables facing the dilemma of sticking with Arnold or opting for a seasoned Casey Thompson or exploring the potential of Michael Hawkins.

As the regular season winds down, the Sooners are on the brink of missing bowl eligibility, a once inconceivable notion. The fanbase's patience wears thinner by the game, with a future uncertain. Changing the narrative will require decisive actions, some introspection, and a return to the discipline and prowess that once defined Oklahoma football.

A Call to Action for the Sooners

There's little time to implement those changes—only two games remain to turn back towards a winning path. The Sooners are at a crossroads, needing a spark to pull themselves back from the depths of despair, rekindle the fighting spirit that has defined their legacy, and provide something for fans to believe in once again.

As the dust settles in Oak Grove, Missouri, the call for Oklahoma is clear: It’s time for a change, and fast. The culture, player utilization, and strategical approaches need immediate addressing if the Sooners are to rise once again from their rock bottom.

Try and lure Rashad Samples closer to home let him go recruit some dudes on offense. He is a hell of a recruiter and has been Assistant HC for 3 schools now. He hasn’t called plays but this thing more about Jimmy’s & Joes instead of the X’s & O’s. OU don’t have them on offense.

I counted at least 6 different blatant holds tonight . None were called. Holton was destroying his guy several times it was missed.

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I wanted BV to be the next great HC at OU. After watching 3 years of this, I don't believe it is going to work out.

Obviously the offense is terrible, no need to rehash that. But the defense is not a really good defense. They're better than the defenses of the past several years, but they're not a great defense. They consistently collapse when the going gets tough.

Go back to Bob's 2001 team. The defense was great with an equally inept offense, but still found ways to win games. The 2001 offense wasn't good, but it wasn't keystone cops every time they took the field. They at least had a scheme and plays they were trying to execute. And they didn't consistently make horrible mistakes that gave the game away.

I don't see how this gets any better by simply adding a competent OC & QB coach. Will it help? Sure, but is it going to suddenly make this a disciplined football team that takes pride in the details of winning.

Everybody points to BVs recruiting and I agree it is better than TBOW. But he's doing the same thing at LB that BB did on the OL.

I think it's time to find a proven winner HC if OU wants to get back to the top.