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O’Gara: There’s a question nobody in the SEC is asking … what if Jackson Arnold is the next great Oklahoma QB?
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Nobody in the SEC wants to consider a certain scenario, but the question is worth asking.
If there’s any “Quarterback U” discussion, Oklahoma is part of it. Why? Well, in the Playoff era alone, Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray won a Heisman Trophy en route to becoming the No. 1 overall pick. Jalen Hurts was the 2019 Heisman runner-up en route to becoming an All-Pro NFL quarterback. Caleb Williams didn’t win his Heisman at Oklahoma, but he was still one of the best quarterbacks in the country once he took over the starting job as a true freshman in 2021.
Ah, I know what you’re thinking. That was all Lincoln Riley, right? Well, Dillon Gabriel spent 2 productive years as the Oklahoma starter in the post-Riley era before opting to finish his college career at Oregon, where he needs just 31 touchdown passes to become the FBS record-holder for career TD passes.
So yes, SEC fans, we need to discuss a certain scenario playing out. Like, what if Jackson Arnold is the next great Oklahoma quarterback?
Folks in Norman have already asked that question, but outside of that, Arnold’s potential rise is mostly on the back burner in the SEC, which boasts 5 returning quarterbacks who either won a New Year’s 6 bowl or started in the Playoff game in 2023.
That doesn’t include someone like Nico Iamaleava, who enters his redshirt freshman season as Tennessee’s most hyped quarterback since Peyton Manning. Like Iamaleava, Arnold enters his second season as the former 5-star who’ll take over QB1 duties. Unlike Iamaleava, Arnold didn’t get a bowl game victory as the starter.
Also unlike Iamaleava, however, was the fact that Arnold got to represent his team at SEC Media Days. Make of that what you will. For Arnold, it’s hard to overlook the fact that even though he was 1 of 3 second-year players in Dallas, he came across more like a relaxed veteran instead of a 19-year-old.
“What’s going on?” Arnold said as he greeted the significant media gathering at his stage.
The rest of the time with the media was more about Arnold answering questions instead of asking them. They ranged anywhere from whether “Horns Down” should be penalized to whether SEC road games will feel different than Big 12 road games. It would’ve been strange if someone asked “what if you’re the next great Oklahoma quarterback?”
A turnover-prone bowl game start at the end of his true freshman season shouldn’t dismiss that notion, and simply donning an Oklahoma uniform as QB1 shouldn’t confirm that notion, either. Strangely, perhaps the former is preventing the latter from feeling imminent to the outside world.
It’s easy for SEC fans to dismiss Oklahoma as a whole because the past 3 seasons didn’t include a New Year’s 6 bowl berth, and a group with 5 new starters on the offensive line still has the somewhat evergreen “can they compete in the trenches” question looming over the program as it enters the conference.
That’s understandable. But what if Arnold, who was the No. 8 overall recruit in the 2023 class, has the mobility and improved decision-making to overcome that? What if Arnold is not quite great, but he’s still 1 of the SEC’s top 5 quarterbacks with what should be considered one of the best receiver rooms in America?
Some might assume that’ll be impossible with Seth Littrell stepping into the OC role for Jeff Lebby, who left for Mississippi State. When was the last time an analyst got promoted to OC and ran an elite offense, you ask? You’d have to go all the way back to … 2023 Georgia, which finished 1 spot behind Oklahoma with the No. 5 scoring offense after Mike Bobo’s promotion from analyst to OC.
And if you think a second-year player/new QB1 is incapable of stepping into the SEC and dominating, just go back to the last time the conference added new teams. Johnny Manziel happened.
A coordinator/conference change is by no means a deal breaker, especially for someone as talented as Arnold, who earned that recruiting ranking playing against 6A competition in the state of Texas. Arnold came across as someone who was in his element at SEC Media Days, which was held about 40 miles from where he became a star at Guyer High School in Denton, Texas.
Fellow Oklahoma player representative Billy Bowman also played his high school ball in Denton, but at Ryan High School. Bowman joked that he “runs Denton,” though when asked about his teammate’s claim, Arnold pointed out that Ryan got the upper hand on Guyer his sophomore year, but that was a different story once Arnold became QB1 as a junior. Now, though, Bowman and Arnold are both trying to establish Oklahoma as a force in Year 1 in the SEC.
“Irons sharpens irons” cliché notwithstanding, simply facing Bowman and the Oklahoma defense every day won’t guarantee that Arnold will be great in 2024. But is it crazy to think that Arnold will have a greater margin for error knowing that he has a Year 3 Brent Venables defense on his side? After all, this is the same guy who led Clemson to top-25 scoring defenses in his last 9 seasons before taking the Oklahoma job. In Year 3 at Clemson back in 2014, Venables had the No. 3 scoring defense in America, which marked the first of 5 instances that he produced a top-3 unit in FBS.
A top-3 finish is a bit ambitious to project for the Oklahoma defense, even one that returns a pair of preseason All-Americans in Bowman and Danny Stutsman. But after improving by a touchdown per game in 2023, it’s perfectly fair to project another significant improvement for an Oklahoma defense that ranks No. 8 in percentage of returning production.
Couple that with impressive, progressing quarterback play from Arnold and what is Oklahoma in 2024? It sure as heck isn’t an SEC doormat. The schedule might be too difficult to say that Atlanta is the ceiling — Oklahoma faces 6 SEC teams that won at least 9 games last year — but who’s to say that Arnold can’t play a massive role in determining who gets there?
That’s not saying Oklahoma’s ceiling will just be a “frisky” team and it’ll play spoiler down the stretch. It can do those things while staying in Playoff contention into November. If that happens, Arnold will have checked plenty of boxes.
Of course, checking the box of becoming “the next great Oklahoma quarterback” likely won’t happen unless Arnold can at least get to New York by the time his college career ends. After all, it’s Oklahoma. As in, the program that accounted for more 21st-century Heisman-winning quarterbacks (4) than anyone in the sport. The bar is high for Arnold.
Related: Looking to place a bet on the Heisman Trophy winner for 2024? SDS has you covered with all the latest odds!
But if he can even come close to reaching it, there’ll be a different question asked by SEC teams at season’s end.
Why did everyone sleep on Arnold and the Sooners?
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.
