"What are your changes? Is that a loaded question?"
The question was probed from Brent Venables to an off-screen reporter, an Uno reverse card after the Oklahoma head coach was just asked the question on the mind of every last fan in Sooner Nation: What's going to change on this offense?
Tuesday was Venables's first time meeting the media since Saturday's demoralizing 16-12 win over Houston. It was a game where...
-- The Sooners rushed for 75 yards on 29 carries, with running backs accounting for a grand total of 50 yards.
-- Quarterback Jackson Arnold threw 32 times for 174 yards, posting a QBR of 37.5.
-- The Sooner offense was the third-highest scoring unit on the field in the second half, trailing the Houston offense (six points) and the OU defense (two).
-- Venables himself said Oklahoma should have lost, twice, in his post-game interview with SEC Network.
Two games in, Oklahoma is 79th nationally in rushing, Arnold ranks outside the national top 100 in yards per attempt (5.5) with three completions of 20-plus yards, and OU's third down conversion rate of 19.23 percent (5-for-26) is third to the bottom nationally.
Now consider Oklahoma has played Temple and Houston, two teams picked to finish last or second-to-last in their respective conferences. The 15th-ranked Sooners host Tulane on Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN). After that: No. 7 Tennessee comes to town in an ABC Saturday Night Football game on Sept. 21. Four more top-10 teams follow, three of them away from Norman -- No. 2 Texas in Dallas, No. 5 Ole Miss in Oxford, No. 6 Mizzou in Columbia, followed by No. 4 Alabama at home. That's not to mention the rest of the SEC slate: road trips to Auburn and Baton Rouge, plus a home game against a South Carolina team that just pummeled Kentucky.
So, yeah. One can see the collective worry from Oklahoma from outer space.
The lunatic fringe is already calling for replacements for coordinator Seth Littrell and Arnold. Clearly, that's not going to happen.
But, double clearly, something has to change. So what is it, Coach?
"Maybe some things that we're doing in regards to good-on-good work. Continue to maybe get a little bit more of the good-on-good," Venables said. "The practice field is where you want to get exposed, so you don't get into the games and say, 'Okay, this could be an issue.'"
Oklahoma is not only breaking in a new coordinator in Littrell and a redshirt freshman quarterback in Arnold, they're doing so with a supporting cast that is severely banged up. Wide receiver Jayden Gibson, who averaged nearly 27 yards per catch and scored five touchdowns as a freshman in 2023, was lost for the season in camp. Jalil Farooq, the leading returning receiver in terms of catches, broke his foot early in the opener. Nic Anderson, the leading returning receiver in terms of yards and touchdowns, has yet to play.
Meanwhile, the offensive line was already expected to be a work in progress with five new starters, hasn't had expected starting center Branson Hickman, who transferred in with 35 starts at SMU.
No one expected the 2024 Oklahoma offense to rival the 2008 or 2018 units. But everyone expected the offense to be better than this, even considering the inexperience and the injuries.
"How do young, inexperienced players get better? Do they get better by beating up on scouts? That are scout team players that have a chance to be good players in time, but there's a reason they're on the scouts? Or is it going against good people?," Venables asked, rhetorically.
"It's going to bring out the best in you -- competitiveness, your fundamentals, things that you can coach and teach and correct off of tape when you're going against good people."
Far be it for me to prescribe the fix to Oklahoma's offense from my office chair hundreds of miles from Norman, but there's a clear downside to the good-on-good strategy. In addition to everything else, Oklahoma's offense clearly lacks confidence. It's a group of players that need to see the ball go in the net, to borrow a basketball term, even if it is a layup against the scout team.
A month of working against the Oklahoma defense produced the results we've seen so far. Is diving even more into that going to make the offense better?
There's another risk here, as well. An offense full of transfers, young players and projected backups going up against a potentially elite defense full of veterans like potential All-Americans linebacker Danny Stutsman, safety Billy Bowman, and likely Freshman All-American defensive tackle Jayden Jackson might damage more than the OU offense's psyche.
"The flip side of that is guys get really competitive, and you're a little more vulnerable to getting banged up, potentially," Venables said.
An Oklahoma offense that improves from here might still win nine to 10 games, if certain players return, the others improve, and the defense looks as good against Tennessee and Texas as it did against Temple and Houston.
If the offense stays the same, though? A 4-win season is on the table.
The difference might lie in how Venables manages practice this very week.