2023 is officially not the year to remember the Alamo. The Oklahoma Sooners squared off against the Arizona Wildcats in San Antonio for a Big 12 vs. Pac 12 (RIP) shoot out.
This was kind of a momentus day in OU football history: it was the official debut of 5 star freshman QB Jackson Arnold. The gatorade player of the year had high expectations coming in and I could tell on Twitter OU fans were ready to explode. What we got was…. a lot of bad mixed in with a lot of good. Arnold had 4 total turnovers (3 picks and 1 fumble) which is obviously not something you wanna see and gave the Twitter trolls a full clip of ammo for now. However amidst all the turnovers and goofy freshman plays you could see the traits that made this kid a top recruit coming out of HS. He’s got a big arm and a big frame which was on display at times last night.
That was the first deep ball all season that wasn’t severely underthrown. No digs at DG because he did a lot of good things for OU the last 2 years, but he clearly didn’t have a robo arm like that attached to his shoulder. Maybe I’m just sipping on copium but I even with the loss and disasters yesterday I left feeling very encouraged about the Jackson Arnold era at OU. Hopefully this game doesn’t shatter his confidence or anything- it shouldn’t because bowl games are completely fucking meaningless and this basically became a backyard football game after a quarter or two.
My biggest concerns going into next year are the OL and the defense. I wish I was wrong but our defense was kinda fraudulent all year, and that’s extra concerning since that’s BV’s specialty. Most of our promising talent is young and haven’t played much yet which gives me hope, but we’re gonna need that unit to be a LOT stronger in our first year in the SEC. The defensive line generated 0 pressure all season without a heavy blitz and that’s a recipe for disaster. Even when we did get free rushers like a few times in this game, a good quarterback is gonna read that and hit a wide open man in stride with the backend so exposed (pause). We’ve got some dawgs coming in but a DL full of freshman isn’t gonna scare anybody. Gonna need the in house dudes to really develop this offseason.
The other side of our trenches is a really scary situation. Our cornerstone OL guy Cayden Green cowardly went into the transfer portal to head back to Mizzou. I fucking hate Missouri and wish Hell upon that program and I hope we beat the absolute fuck outta them next year. Anyways, we’re basically not returning anybody who started for us this season so that’s just great. Our OL coach BB is really damn good but that’s kinda the only silver lining on that front. Hopefully the portal guys we bring in are worth a fuck.
Overall I’d say 10-3 was a succesful season. Going into the year if you had told me that’d be our record I’d have been pretty excited. It’s only disappointing because of how much meat we left on the bone with those scrub games against OSU and Kansas. This season had big 12 championship potential but we couldn’t quite get there. Oh well, it’s time to take our nuts to the SEC. So long Big 12, I’d like to say I’ll miss you but you did us so fucking dirty at times this year that it’s honestly good riddance now. I can’t imagine that conference being very exciting going forward. Thanks for the memories I guess (14x big 12 champs).
The Armchair Experts 
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