Jackson Arnold: 'No animosity whatsoever' towards Oklahoma ahead of return game in 2025

With his transfer elsewhere in the Southeastern Conference, Auburn QB Jackson Arnold will return to where he started his college career. That’s with Tigers traveling to play in Norman on September 20th for their conference opener at Oklahoma.

Arnold shared his thoughts on returning to OU this fall while on ‘SEC This Morning’ at SEC Media Days in Atlanta on Tuesday. He expects it to be a great game, with no hate towards his former program as part of that for him, when they take the field at Memorial Stadium on that Saturday.

“Yeah, it’ll be a fun game. Extremely excited for that one,” said Arnold. “And, you know, no animosity whatsoever. I just think it’s going to be a fun environment to go and play. I really enjoyed playing in that stadium.”

Arnold spent the past two seasons, with 17 appearances and 10 starts made, at Oklahoma after committing there as one of the top recruits in school history out of Denton, Texas. However, taking over as the starter last season from QB Dillon Gabriel, it didn’t work out as Arnold posted 62.6% completion for 1,421 passing yards with a dozen passing touchdowns and three interceptions. That campaign would include his benching for a time to QB Michael Hawkins and, by regular season’s end, his entry into the portal as a top-ten transfer at the position before committing to Auburn in mid-December.

Asked for what went wrong for him at OU, Arnold put it on his own play overall. He also thinks some things just don’t work out with this next program of his career maybe being where he was supposed to be.

“I mean, for whatever reason, you know, I just didn’t play good,” said Arnold. “Things happen. Things happen for a reason…Sometimes things work out the way it’s supposed to be. You know, we’re on God’s timing, you know, not our timing. And, for me, I felt the best decision for me was to move on and move on somewhere else to get a fresh start, like you said, and go out and do what I know I can do with this Auburn squad this year.”

Arnold is where he thinks he needs to be now in his career down on The Plains. However, he will go back to Norman one last time, for a personal game for him and an important game for his team, when Auburn plays at Oklahoma in their first game in the SEC.