ATHENS, Ga. — There was a passing game Oklahoma could work with Saturday. That is what makes the 41-13 loss at Georgia so aggravating.
Oklahoma offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle created opportunities. Receivers found space. The protection gave John Mateer chances to deliver the ball. At times, OU looked more comfortable attacking this defense than it had looked trying to establish an offensive identity in recent weeks.
Then the quarterback gave the football away.
The overwhelming point is that Arbuckle called a better game than the final score suggests. That does not mean the offense was fixed, or that the coordinator gets to separate himself from the turnovers. It means the discussion should identify what actually failed instead of treating every unsuccessful possession as evidence that nothing worked.
Venables saw opportunities in the plan, too.
“I thought we had a good plan,” he said. “I thought we got guys open.”
Arbuckle described space on the perimeter, in the flats, at the intermediate level and across the middle. OU found some of it by making Rocky Beers and Isaiah Sategna III central to the passing game.
The two combined for 16 catches and 165 receiving yards. Beers caught eight passes for 84 yards and a touchdown. Sategna caught eight for 81.
Those touches gave the offense something repeatable. Oklahoma could deliver the ball to players who knew how to find space, rather than needing every possession to be rescued by a difficult throw or a scramble — though Mateer would sometimes make that the case with his play on Saturday at times.
The drive that ended in Mateer’s first fumble demonstrated the opportunity. OU hit Beers, used Lloyd Avant in the passing game and connected with Sategna for 37 yards. Another completion to Beers helped the Sooners reach goal-to-go territory.
They reached the Georgia 2. The next thing that mattered was Chris Cole running the other way with the football.
That is a devastating outcome for a possession in which the offense had already solved several problems. Arbuckle cannot throw the final pass for his quarterback.
Mateer acknowledged that an outside route was open on that play before the ball came loose. He also credited the offensive line and the receivers during his interview. This was not simply a quarterback standing in front of reporters claiming there was nowhere to go with the ball.
Arbuckle nevertheless refused to celebrate moving it without finishing.
“None of that really matters if you don’t take care of the football,” he said.
He is right. The plan and its execution are connected. A coordinator who helps create completions still has to coach the quarterback’s decisions, the offense’s ball security and the response when a play stops working.
There are other limits to the encouraging parts. Oklahoma managed only 65 rushing yards, converted two of 14 third downs and scored its final touchdown after Georgia had stretched the lead to 41-6. The late production cannot be used to declare the offense healthy.
What OU found was a passing game starting point, not a finished product.
The bye should preserve and sharpen the parts that helped Beers and Sategna get involved. Build clear answers around that spacing. Demand that the quarterback take them. Continue working on protection and the run game instead of asking isolated successful drives to hide their remaining issues.
Arbuckle said he has to coach better and help Mateer get the ball out of his hand. That is the necessary next step, regardless of who starts against Texas.
Oklahoma finally had stretches in which the offense looked capable of helping its defense. Watching those stretches end in turnovers was worse than another day of wondering whether the plays were there.
They were there. OU failed to finish them.
