You could see the relief all over Brent Venables.
As R Mason Thomas wrapped former Oklahoma and current Auburn quarterback Jackson Arnold up for a program record 10th sack of the highly anticipated day, Venables let out a triumphant fist pump and a rare sideline smile.
With a 5-point lead in the final minutes, that couldn’t be the moment that his defense broke. It just couldn’t. Not against Arnold, AKA the 5-star quarterback that Venables recruited to become his QB1, only to self-combust along with the rest of the 2024 Oklahoma offense. Whether Venables wanted to admit it publicly or not, that couldn’t be the person who handed the Sooners their first loss of 2025.
Fortunately for Venables and Oklahoma, Arnold was roughly 100 yards away from doing that.
Venables got the last laugh in the Arnold-Oklahoma breakup game with a 24-17 victory, though maybe that’s not the right way to phrase it. Despite what the Oklahoma student section chanted at Arnold — the f-bombs in the swear jar alone could’ve covered John Mateer’s NIL earnings — Venables didn’t have a reason to feel scorned by Arnold and vise versa. It just didn’t work out.
Blame the 8 different offensive line rotations. Blame the receivers who dropped like flies. Blame the offensive coordinator who couldn’t make it to November. Blame Arnold. All contributed to OU’s historically dreadful offense in its first year in the SEC.
What was undeniable was that Arnold couldn’t walk into Norman and beat the 2025 version of Oklahoma
To his credit, he got closer than plenty of the OU faithful would’ve liked. That included a 14-play, 75-yard drive in the front half of the 4th quarter that gave Auburn a stunning 17-16 lead. It took Mateer leading a go-ahead answer of his own for Oklahoma to survive Arnold. As in, the guy that Venables hand-picked to right the wrong of 2024. Mateer might not have had the type of performance that some of the past great OU quarterbacks have delivered on that stage, but he had a passing touchdown and a rushing touchdown for the 10th consecutive game, dating back to his time at Washington State.
As for the passing touchdown in the second quarter, well, let’s just say it’ll be one that Auburn fans are understandably livid about. It appeared that OU receiver Isaiah Sategna illegally pretended to head to the sideline during a substitution period, only to line up near the edge of the Oklahoma sideline. Mateer connected with the wide-open Sategna for the first touchdown of the day:
That was part of a … let’s just call it an officiating performance that Hugh Freeze won’t be praising anytime soon (the missed defensive pass interference on the Cam Coleman trick play mattered slightly less because Auburn still scored a go-ahead touchdown).
But Saturday was about Venables finding a way, by any means necessary. That was all that mattered for the Year 4 coach, who just picked up his second win against a ranked foe this season. In both of those games, neither opponent hit 20 points. Including last year’s blowout win against Alabama last year, that’s the 3rd consecutive ranked opponent to come into Norman and fail to hit that mark. That’ll play.
What wouldn’t have played for Venables was watching Oklahoma’s emerging, Mateer-led offense get stymied while a new and improved version of Arnold delivered the ultimate “how do you like me now?” performance.
(Yes, that’s a reference to the late Toby Keith. Just for you, Oklahoma.)
We don’t know who Venables’ new boss will be when AD Joe Castiglione’s retirement happens this school year. We do know that a Year 4 coach who has the program’s only 2 losing seasons of the 21st century isn’t exactly locked in for the rest of the decade. We also know that if Venables couldn’t win a game like that — against the quarterback who had plenty of unsuccessful reps against his defense in practice last season — then it was fair to question his future at OU.
After Saturday’s performance, it’s now fair to question whether this will be a Playoff team. After all, the Sooners are 4-0 with an extremely favorable path to 5-0 heading into the Red River Rivalry (upcoming Kent State hasn’t beaten an FBS opponent since 2022). Mateer isn’t going anywhere as one of the early Heisman favorites, and all signs point to Oklahoma being a top-10 team heading into that Texas showdown. If both teams stay in the top 10 for that matchup, it’ll mark the first such occasion since 2008.
Venables and his team earned the right to turn the page. His unit overwhelmed Arnold at several key points. Seven first-half sacks without the presence of Thomas, who was suspended for the first half because of a targeting ejection, spoke to just how well Venables dialed up looks against his former quarterback.
There’s a world in which Oklahoma could’ve watched Arnold celebrate that go-ahead touchdown and not found the right offensive answers when it mattered most. That world would’ve been a cloud that hung over anything that Oklahoma accomplished (or didn’t accomplish) in 2025. But that’ll be nothing more than an alternate universe for Venables.
In this world, Venables is 4-0 and perhaps more importantly, he’s 1-0 in SEC play for the first time. Lord knows last year’s 0-1 start to SEC play felt even more significant because it included benching Arnold. This year’s 1-0 start in SEC play had to feel even more significant because it included beating Arnold. It might not be in Venables’ nature to get the last laugh on someone, so let’s call it something else.
It just had to work out like that.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
