Oklahoma's season outlook shifts after home loss to Ole Miss

After Oklahoma’s 34-26 loss to Ole Miss at home on Saturday afternoon, a dejected Brent Venables met with the media and reflected on the opportunities the Sooners had. A word he used regularly during that postgame news conference was “regret.”

“We’re all going to have some regret watching the tape,” he said.

Venables was speaking more about poor execution, missed opportunities for his defense to get off the field, and the inability to snatch a winnable game from a talented Ole Miss team.

But “regret” feels appropriate for more reasons than just what happened on the field Saturday. Regret is about what could have been this season.

Oklahoma’s dream of making the College Football Playoff, which existed a short three weeks ago, now seems all but dead. Before this loss to Ole Miss — a game before which Oklahoma was favored by 4.5 points — this season was all filled with optimism and fueled by the burning desire to prove to the world this team was wildly under-appreciated. After the loss, the prevailing feeling is dread as the fear sets in that this season could be slipping away.

Think about where this Oklahoma team was in early October. It had a team that traversed a tricky first half of the schedule well, getting to 5-0 with wins over Michigan and Auburn on its resume. It had a quarterback in John Mateer who was getting early-season Heisman Trophy love. Even after Mateer got injured and had to have surgery on his throwing hand, the Sooners’ spirit thrived as the Internet flooded with memes of Dr. Steve Shin, the doctor who operated on his hand. Vibes were high.

Then Oklahoma faced Texas and got smacked by its rival, even after Mateer made what seemed to be a miraculous early return to the game. That was painful because Oklahoma had a real chance to beat the Longhorns, a team that has vastly underperformed its outrageously high preseason expectations.

Oklahoma had a get-right game last weekend against South Carolina, beating the Gamecocks on the road 26-7. After that win, Venables was encouraged by how his team responded to the Texas loss, stating he felt the program illustrated growth and the ability to do things previous iterations of the team wouldn’t have been able to pull off. 

That had Oklahoma at 6-1 while facing one of the toughest schedules you’ll ever see. The mantra was never to be perfect, but the Sooners had the opportunity to get to nine wins by doing one simple thing: winning the games they’re expected to win. 

Though Ole Miss came into this game as a one-loss team ranked in the top 10 of the Associated Press poll, Oklahoma was expected to win this game. The Sooners’ defense was viewed as one of the most impressive units in the country, and the offense, backed by a presumably healthier Mateer, was supposed to be able to score on these Rebels.

Ole Miss scored 34 points, and though Oklahoma held the Rebels to field goals in some crucial spots, quarterback Trinidad Chambliss tortured the Sooners on third downs. The offense started multiple freshmen on the offensive line and had protection breakdowns all game.

Even after running back Xavier Robinson almost single-handedly willed the Sooners to a win — turning a 25-13 deficit into a 26-25 lead with two touchdown runs — the Sooners couldn’t take the game on their home field. So if last week was a step forward, was this a step back?

“We missed some opportunity,” Venables said. “Set back? That’s for everyone else to say. Losing ain’t ever good. There’s nothing necessarily; we’re not going to be bragging on anything. There’s nothing to brag about. We needed to coach them better and play better and be better situationally. We made some critical mistakes in the game. If the players are making mistakes on the field, we got to look at ourselves and what we’re asking them to do.”

Want to know what the SEC is asking Oklahoma to do? Finish its season with four consecutive games against Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri and LSU. And sitting at 6-2, Oklahoma now has to win at least two of those games to even finish with a season that is acceptable to some fans.

During the offseason, we felt like Oklahoma was probably an 8-4 team. Maybe that’s what the Sooners will wind up being. But after starting 5-0 and seemingly being way ahead of schedule after a disastrous 2024 season, this Oklahoma fan base allowed itself to dream.

On Saturday, those dreams died. Optimism went with it.

Now the hope is that Venables — a coach who, thus far, has likely earned himself another season as Oklahoma’s head coach — can keep this team together enough to at least win two of those last four incredibly difficult games. But remember, what we think about a head coach is always in flux in the middle of the season.

If he doesn’t win at least two?

If Oklahoma allows its season to get away from it?

Things could get uncomfortable.