The Oklahoma Sooners 2024 season hit rock bottom in their 34-3 loss to the Texas Longhorns. With two weeks to prepare for the No. 1 team in the nation, the offense failed to capitalize on a strong first quarter performance from the defense.
Whether it’s inexperience or a poor game plan or both, Oklahoma’s struggles on the offensive side will define the 2024 season. Though there have been a number of injuries that brought the Sooners to this point, the coaching staff hasn’t had an answer to overcome them.
After the loss, the Sooners look like they’ll have a hard time getting to 6-6 this season. Even if they did, that would be the second time in three seasons under Brent Venables where the Sooners finished the regular season .500.
That’s not the expectation for this program. After their most recent loss to Texas, Oklahoma was featured in Dan Wolken’s “Misery Index” for USA TODAY Sports.
The (Lincoln) Riley divorce hasn’t necessarily been great for the Sooners, either. They’re in Year 3 under Brent Venables, and they’ve basically got the opposite problem they had under their former coach. Venables has undeniably improved the defense, which was expected given his Hall of Fame-level credentials as a coordinator, but the offense is a complete mess. The Sooners try to play fast and use a lot of misdirection, but to what end when they have no passing game to speak of and Texas could just stack the box with impunity in a 34-3 romp over Oklahoma? Michael Hawkins, the Sooners’ freshman quarterback, isn’t ready for this level of competition yet and showed it against Texas as possession after possession ended in disaster. And that’s a tough pill for fans to swallow when Dillon Gabriel walked out the door after last season and transferred to Oregon, where he is quarterbacking a likely College Football Playoff team. – Wolken, USA TODAY Sports
While Riley was featured for the first part of Wolken’s piece, Oklahoma fans have their own fish to fry.
The offense is averaging just 24.3 points per game this season, which ranks 96th in the nation and 15th out of 16 teams in the SEC. In conference play play, the Sooners are averaging just 15 points per game. Take out the Kip Lewis interception return for a touchdown against Auburn, the Sooners are averaging Oklahoma is averaging just 12.67 points per game.
In the first half of three SEC games, the Sooners have scored a total of 13 points. There was the long touchdown run by Michael Hawkins Jr. to open the Auburn game and then just a field goal apiece against Tennessee and Texas.
To say Oklahoma’s offense has been bad might be an understatement. Nothing’s working and Seth Littrell and Joe Jon Finley haven’t come up with an answer to right the ship. Again, the offense is inexperienced but the co-offensive coordinators have been coaching long enough to find answers to overcome it.
We’ll see if they can fair better against a South Carolina defense that has been really good at times in 2024.
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