Ledger Shows Another Postseason L, but Oklahoma's Success is Rooted Deeper Than That

NORMAN — Going into Friday night, nobody here had signed up for another loss in the College Football Playoff.

But that’s what Oklahoma’s ledger shows now: a 34-24 defeat at home to the Alabama Crimson Tide. An 0-5 all-time playoff mark. An 0-4 postseason mark for head coach Brent Venables. Another almost inexplicable 17-point lead, inexplicably squandered, just like 2017.

For a program that had won a national championship every quarter century for the last 75 years — 1950, 1975, 2000 — the Sooners’ loss ensures that notion was always just pure fantasy, a galactic coincidence, a glitch in the matrix. Long live the streak. On to Year 26.

But stepping back to view the big picture, getting a 30,000-foot look at the scope of 2025, Sooner Nation should be able to appreciate where this program was, where it got to, and where it’s going.

“Would you call it successful because we didn't have the big diamond on our pinkie ring? Yeah, you could say no,” said senior defensive end R Mason Thomas. “But at the end of the day, to go out with my guys like this, I count it as successful, yeah.”

The feeling coming home from Fort Worth a year ago, having lost the Armed Forces Bowl to Navy as well as a bunch of players to the transfer portal, a trip to the College Football Playoff and a 10-win season and a November full of unexpected victories was not something anyone foresaw — outside the Switzer Center, that is.

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“As far as I'm concerned, this season was a success,” said linebacker Owen Heinecke. “It didn't end how we wanted. Obviously our goal at the beginning of the year is to win a national championship.

“But I'm super proud of the team, super proud of the fight we put up all season. A lot of people expected us to not come out of our season and our schedule the way we did. But we just fought all year. Our motto was ‘Hard to kill,’ and the team took that and ran with it and really embodied that. So as far as I'm concerned, yeah, the season was a success. Did it end the way we wanted it to? No. But you can't discount all the great moments and all the hard work that everybody's put in throughout the year.”

“We did a lot of things people didn't expect,” said quarterback John Mateer. “And it's just because of the group of guys we had. I love these guys. And we all hate that it's over. And that's all I'm really thinking about right now. I wish we could just have one more day together.”

Beating Alabama in back-to-back regular season games as a brand new member of the Southeastern Conference no doubt created a lifetime of memories and good vibes for the team and for the fan base.

But then losing to the Crimson Tide in a game with so much on the line — again, just like in the 2018 Orange Bowl, when Bama roared to a 45-34 playoff victory in Miami — leaves a permanent scar.

“Doesn't take away from the kind of season we had,” Venables said.

The coach then turned his thoughts to the players he recruited out of high school when he first got the job in December 2021, and how many from that senior class just wrapped their fourth year of college football and now move on with their lives.

“I couldn't be more proud of them, the deposit they chose to make,” Venables said. “In an environment, a world where everybody's trying to get theirs, this is a group of guys that chose not to take a withdrawal but leave a deposit and leave their mark, do the things that we needed them to do to help elevate this program.”

A pattern doesn’t equate to a trend. In this case, Venables’ first four seasons represent the former — six wins, then 10 wins, then six wins, then 10 wins. That’s volatility or just inconsistency at best.

To change that pattern to a trend, Venables and the 2026 Sooners need to win again, and win big. Against a demanding schedule, OU needs to post another 10-win season. Do that several years in a row and maybe that elusive national championship can be attained.

“Our best days are sitting in front of us,” Venables said. “I really believe that. We've got a great foundation coming back, and I think a vision for what it needs to look like moving forward.”