'That was Ugly': Oklahoma's Offense Falters Against New Mexico With Tougher Tests on the Horizon

COLUMN

NORMAN — Oklahoma won its football game Saturday night.

The scoreboard said it, so it must be true.

The Sooners beat New Mexico 14-6 on Owen Field.

But the Oklahoma offense was undoubtedly a loser in the non-conference finale.

John Mateer not only didn’t show improvement from his stinker of a performance against Michigan, he looked like he’d regressed from last season. The running game was rancid. The offensive line didn’t look like it could stop someone from getting out of a phone booth.

And the boos rained down, starting from the third play of the game when Mateer threw the first of two interceptions.

They continued when the Sooners dialed up back-to-back running plays with time running down in the first half, settling for a field-goal opportunity — that missed — instead of pushing for something bigger to gain a measure of momentum going into the break.

Chants of “Fire Ben Arbuckle” quickly became mixed in with the boos and grew louder with each inept play.

Brent Venables often harps on his defense, even when it performs well.

After the game against the Lobos, though, even Venables had to focus mostly on offense.

“Welp,” Venables said as he settled behind the lectern for his postgame press conference before taking a long pause. “That was … That was ugly.”

Venables was being kind.

“Captain Obvious here, we got a lot of work to do,” Venables said later in his opening statement as words started flowing a bit easier, “a lot of improvement to do going into Georgia. Ain’t going to look like what it looked like out there today as far as the people we’re going to line up against.”

The Sooners managed just 61 yards on the ground, their lowest in a regular-season game against a non-power conference opponent (or Notre Dame) since 2008 against TCU.

Their 14 points was the fewest in a non-conference home game since Notre Dame in 2012 and the first such game against a non-power conference opponent since the 17-10 loss to TCU to start the 2005 season.

“We all understand the standard,” Arbuckle said. “We all understand the expectation. I’ll leave it at that. We understand the standard. We understand the expectation. We’re going to put our head down. We’re going to work.”

I asked Arbuckle afterward what the most frustrating part of the offensive performance was.

There wasn’t a shortage of deficiencies to pick from.

“Just that at times it was really dirty and really sloppy,” Arbuckle said. “I can just tell you, I’m going to watch the film, and there’s going to be things that we can get a little bit cleaner on, we can be a little faster, a little bit more physical on, and that’s going to be the frustrating thing.”

New Mexico Lobos, Tavian Combs — New Mexico defensive back Tavian Combs celebrates an interception in the first half of Saturday's 14-6 Oklahoma win over the Lobos. | Carson Field / Sooners on SI

Arbuckle then said there were things the offense did well.

No one wants to hear that part after the last two weeks’ clunkers offensively.

Arbuckle then went back to his biggest frustration.

“You asked me what the most frustrating thing is. That’s probably what it is, just how dirty and how dirty and how messy it was, and it didn’t have to be.”

The Sooners need to be more than a little bit cleaner. They need to be more than a little bit faster. They need to be more than a little bit more physical.

Next week, the offense that has shown only a faint pulse over the last two games faces a Georgia defense that has allowed just 211 yards per game. After a bye week, the Sooners will then take on top-ranked Texas.

Mateer said he didn’t need the boos to let him know the offensive output was unacceptable.

“Sure, do it,” Mateer said. “Do whatever you want. But we know. We’re people too. … I believe in these guys. We love each other, so we’re not gonna give up, and we’re not gonna go backwards. We’re gonna keep fighting.”

Venables was asked whether he had confidence in Arbuckle moving forward.

The endorsement wasn’t exactly ringing.

“I’m not going to talk about confidence,” Venables said. “He’s our offensive coordinator. We got a lot of work to do to improve, to get better. We’re going to need to make improvement if we’re going to have a chance to win the games against the teams we’re going to play. We can’t keep playing with a hot stove.”

In declining to talk about his confidence level in Arbuckle, Venables said plenty.

If the last two weeks were playing with a hot stove, the Sooners are about to try to dance on the surface of the sun.

Without major improvements, Oklahoma’s offense could meet the fate of Icarus before October is halfway done.

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