Can Oklahoma Finally Be Good on Both Offense and Defense?

When the Sooners boom on one side, they usually bust on the other.

New Sooners QB John Mateer. (Sarah Phipps / The Oklahoman / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

Before I went flying recently, I picked up one of my favorite magazines to keep me company in the air — Phil Steele’s annual college football mega-preview magazine, which is still (for my money) the gold standard of all season previews, in print or online. One of Phil’s recurring features is his list of surprise teams, and while I won’t spoil the whole thing, I will say this: He’s extremely high on Oklahoma. The Sooners ranked No. 1 on his breakout list, made his “most improved” rankings and even cracked his preseason Top 10 — despite finishing 6-7 last year.

The reasoning was simple enough. OU had one of the better defenses in college football last year — the reason why coach Brent Venables was brought back to Norman in the first place, after working previously under Bob Stoops and later Dabo Swinney, to fix the inconsistent mess this D had often been under Lincoln Riley. With eight starters coming back, the assumption is they’ll be strong again. The big upside potential comes on offense, then, which ought to be vastly improved for reasons I’ll get to in a minute. Add in an extra SEC home game versus last year, and OU has the chance to remind everyone why they were invited to the conference in the first place.

But in order for all of that to translate to a playoff return after being locked out for the entire 2020s so far, the Sooners would need to do something that has been surprisingly difficult for one of the prestige programs in college football: Sync up a good performance on both sides of the ball at the same time.