How Oklahoma Plans to ‘Keep Fighting’ After Loss to Michigan

The Sooners will need to work quickly to fix the mistakes that they made in their loss to Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Oklahoma wide receiver Isaiah Sategna catches a pass against Michigan. | Carson Field / Sooners On SI

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Two weeks into the 2026 season, Oklahoma is exactly where it doesn’t want to be — behind the eight-ball.

The Sooners fell 17-10 to Michigan on Saturday to fall to 1-1. Oklahoma will battle two teams currently ranked in the top 10 of the AP poll — Georgia and Texas — in its next three games before its final seven SEC games.

“We have to improve, find out the ways that we can do a better job as a staff and help them be better when it matters the most,” OU coach Brent Venables said.

Not much went right in Saturday’s loss.

The Sooners went scoreless in the first half and ended the game with only one touchdown. Defensively, OU missed 21 tackles, per Pro Football Focus, and allowed dual-threat quarterback Bryce Underwood to rush for 87 yards. Michigan also forced one turnover — a fourth-quarter interception — and committed zero.

The dismal performance against the Wolverines will undoubtedly serve as a wake-up call after OU cruised to a 51-0 win over UTEP.

Now, Venables’ message to his team is for them to quickly put it behind them.

“(He told us), ‘It's a long season, and we’re going to get up… we've got a game in 7 days, so get up off the mat and keep fighting,” quarterback John Mateer said.

The good news for the Sooners? This isn’t a totally unfamiliar position for them.

Last year, things seemed bleak for OU’s College Football Playoff chances. After starting the season 5-0, Oklahoma lost twice — to Texas and Ole Miss — in a three-week stretch.

At 6-2, the Sooners had to win each of their final four regular-season games against Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri and LSU to have a chance to make the CFP. And sure enough, they did just that.

In the moments after Saturday’s back-breaking defeat, linebacker Owen Heinecke drew parallels between where the Sooners currently are and where they were last year.

“I think the biggest takeaway is that you can’t let a loss divide the team,” Heinecke said. “Last year I think they had us at like a 4 percent chance to make the playoffs, and that’s exactly what we did. Just take this as a learning opportunity, fix the things that went wrong.”

That said, the road ahead is far from easy.

In addition to the games against Georgia and Texas, the Sooners will battle three other SEC squads that are currently ranked — Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Missouri — later in the year. OU’s other conference games will be against Mississippi State, Kentucky, Florida and South Carolina, and Kentucky is the only of those squads that has lost in 2026.

But Venables isn’t looking that far ahead. He knows that changes need to be made before the Sooners take on New Mexico — a 2-0 team that went 9-4 last year — in their final non-conference game on Saturday.

“We got to do everything we can to again put this game behind us, learn from it, grow from it, get better from it and get ready for again a 10-win New Mexico team that's coming into Norman next week,” Venables said.

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