How Does Oklahoma Respond to Success? Let's Take a Quick Look at History

COLUMN

So, what’s next for Oklahoma? No, really. After beating Texas, what's next?

The Sooners played their best game of the year last week in Dallas, and the result was an impressive 27-24 upset of the nation’s No. 1 team. Pretty good.

But this came just two weeks after a scattered performance in a 41-13 loss at Georgia, three weeks after a sloppy 14-6 win over New Mexico, and a month after a 17-10 loss at an increasingly mundane Michigan.

So was OU’s Red River Rivalry performance a product of steady improvement? A leap during the bye week? A simple reversal of the turnover margin?

Or was it more due to the nature of an intense, deeply personal (for some) rivalry game against the top-ranked team in college football, a team that didn’t shy away from just a little of that “big brother” trash talk?

Rephrase: Did the Sooners simply “get up” for the Longhorns? Did they rise up? Did they focus more, practice sharper, take everything more seriously?

And if it’s the latter — what happens this week when Southeastern Conference play resumes?

Inquiring minds want to know — because upstart Kentucky is coming to Norman this week, and the Wildcats (5-1), for all their basketball blue bloodedness, is trying to sprout some football respectability.

“They’re playing as well as anybody in college football right now,” OU coach Brent Venables said.

Venables has said before doesn’t believe in a Texas hangover. Said it in 2023 when, in his second season as a head coach, OU improved to 6-0 by beating Texas in a drama-filled 34-30 thriller.

The next three weeks were agony for Sooner Nation as they had to hold off first-year Big 12 member Central Florida 31-29, then lost for the first time in a million years at Kansas 38-33, and the last time (maybe ever) at Oklahoma State 27-24.

“I don’t think that had anything to do with Texas,” Venables said that year after falling to the Jayhawks and Cowboys. “I know that’s a popular thing, I’m sure, because of all the attention that that game had. But we’ve moved on from that game.”

That OU team started 7-0 and lost back-to-back contests in which they were favored by double-digits — all after returning home following a highly emotional triumph over the ‘Horns. Remember Danny Stutsman’s cigar T-shirts, and so on?

This OU team, on the other hand, is now just 3-2 after the big win. They are under no illusion that they’re playing like a national championship contender. Not with this offense.

Still, Venables suggested often during his first two seasons that handling success was easily as difficult if not more so than handling failure. In that case, it seemed the Sooners just didn’t handle the euphoria of a riveting Red River win.

“Mismanaged success is a very normal thing when you are in these positions,” Venables said in 2023. He had a reason to believe that — several reasons, actually.

Remember in 2022, Venables’ first season back from Clemson, following a huge emotional win at Nebraska? The Sooners reached No. 6 in the AP Poll, then promptly lost their next three games against Big 12 opponents.

Later that season, after an unranked OU squad knocked off No. 24 Oklahoma State, they stumbled to a shocking loss at Texas Tech on their way to a 6-7 finish.

In 2024, a week after recording their very first SEC win at Auburn, they were hammered by Texas. A week after a stunning victory at Alabama, they were obliterated at LSU.

Maybe it’s not a post-Texas hangover. Maybe it’s just the wildly inconsistent nature of college football in the 2020s. Get up the best you can for the big games, don’t sweat the small ones. Or something.

Then again, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Venables’ squad last year experienced no such wild swings. Led by a mature roster front-loaded with an elite defense, that team didn’t have time for such hijinks. They were upset by Texas, then lost to Ole Miss’ best team ever, then lost in a home playoff game to mighty Alabama.

No real swings there.

Now it’s 2026, and just a week ago, these Sooners were spiraling into “fire everyone” territory — from the brand new athletic director to the head coach he just handed a massive contract extension to the offensive coordinator Venables hired just last year to the quarterback whom that OC brought with him from Washington State.

And then last Saturday evening in the Cotton Bowl, there was that head coach, putting together yet another dominating defensive scheme, and that OC, drawing up two pretty sharp plays at the end of the game to give the Sooners a shot after a stunning, last-second takeaway, and that QB, delivering laser-guided rockets into Isaiah Sategna’s oh-so-talented hands (not to mention those incredible, flexible feet).

No doubt OU is the flavor — literally of the week in college football.

The Football Writers Association of America named Oklahoma its Pop-Tarts National Team of the Week.

Pick-six hero Peyton Bowen was named Jim Thorpe Award National Defensive Back of the Week.

Linebacker Owen Heinecke was named the Brandon Burlsworth Award (Former) National Walk-On of the Week.

And kicker Tate Sandell, who sealed the historic win and paid off those two John Mateer throws with a 47-yard field goal and a flex right into Longhorn Nation’s angst-twisted faces, was named one of three Lou Groza Award Stars of the Week.

Bottom line: OU knocked off the nation’s No. 1-ranked team for the first time in nearly 20 years and everybody, it seems, from punt blocker Danny Okoye to defensive back (and future land surveyor?) Dakoda Fields to running back Lloyd Avant to punter/holder Jacob Ulrich to star d-tackles David Stone and Jayden Jackson got a piece of the glory pie.

Everybody got to wear the Golden Hat Trophy.

Just the way Kentucky wants it.

“Go ahead,” the Wildcats are saying. “You guys enjoy those awards. You look good in that hat. We’ll be ready at 6:30 Saturday night.”

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