From DimeTime Retreat to Freshman Adversity, Oklahoma QB Jackson Arnold Has Already Been Through Some Things

After a tough debut in San Antonio, the Sooners' QB has "improved dramatically" as he follows in the footsteps of Dillon Gabriel and others.

Oklahoma quarterback Jackson Arnold / NATHAN J. FISH/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY

Jackson Arnold saw up close last year how the Oklahoma quarterback is supposed to act.

His teacher was Dillon Gabriel.

When Gabriel arrived from Central Florida ahead of the 2022 season, one of his first acts after spring practice ended was to take the OU offense to a lake retreat — The DimeTime Retreats, Gabriel called it.

A year later, as Arnold was adjusting to life as a college football player, Gabriel took the offense out again.

It’s a tradition that Arnold has been looking forward to continuing — and he has.

“Yeah, we actually had, instead of just doing an offensive and defensive retreat separately, we had a team retreat this past weekend,” Arnold said last week at SEC Media Days in Dallas. “We drove up to Kingfisher, Oklahoma, and shot some skeet, played paintball and really just bonded with the guys.”

Gabriel quickly endeared himself to his new teammates by sponsoring their getaway. It established him as a team leader and let his teammates know what he was willing to do for them.

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Arnold followed that example as closely as he could.

“I just wanted the guys to be around each other outside the locker room,” Arnold said. “We’re with each other the majority of the day, and we hang out with each other outside the facility, but getting everybody together and just really bonding with each other and doing things together kind of helped build the chemistry in that room.”

After the 2023 regular season, Gabriel hit the transfer portal and decided to play his final season at Oregon. That opened the door for the Jackson Arnold Era to begin smoothly in Norman.

From Josh Heupel to Jason White to Sam Bradford to Landry Jones to Baker Mayfield to Kyler Murray to Jalen Hurts to Dillon Gabriel, OU quarterbacks over the last quarter century have set a ridiculous standard of winning football, statistical excellence, unparalleled leadership, impressive toughness and historic achievement. Arnold, a former 5-star recruit at Denton (TX) Guyer, feels he can be on that same track.

“There’s a lot of pressure that comes with this position for sure,” he said. “Again, at the end of the day, I just gotta go out and perform to the best of my abilities and hope I live up to that lineage.”

Arnold’s first career start after Gabriel’s exit was the Sooners’ Alamo Bowl loss to Arizona. Arnold completed 26-of-45 passes for 361 yards and two touchdowns, but he also threw three interceptions and lost a fumble as the Sooners lost by double-digits. 

Arnold left San Antonio clearly not happy with his own performance, but also profoundly impressed with the Wildcats.

“For Arizona, they did a great job of mixing up some looks, whether that's attacking certain concepts that we run or recognizing certain concepts and jumping routes,” he said. “They just did a great job scheming against us and game planning. Big props to them and their coaching staff. They played a great game. 

“But for us, for me, it's, the turnovers were unacceptable. You can't have that, especially not coming into the SEC, into this conference. That's something that I had to learn after watching the game and just studying the film, seeing what I did wrong, whether it's timing or even just a poor decision, too, just kind of learning from it. At the end of the day, you learn from it and move on from it. We’re gonna be prepared for this season.”

To that end, Arnold said he’s “a lot different” quarterback going into this season than he was in December. 

“I had a whole spring ball,” he said. “A whole almost summer to learn from that game and really apply the things that I learned into that off-season into spring ball. Whether it’s timing, decisions, footwork, all of the above. I think I’ve improved dramatically as a player.”

Arnold said the tough night at the Alamodome taught him a lesson about college football — and made him realize he’d been through a similar situation earlier in his career.

“My freshman year in high school, I was thrown into the state championship game,” he said. “I was like 5-10, 170, and got destroyed. I don’t know if I had like 20 yards passing in that game. But really, just looking at that game, it pushed me. It was a great deal of adversity I had to overcome from that game and throughout my high school career. Looking back on that, it reminded me of the Arizona game (last) year. Having had that first experience, I knew I had to learn from that game, one, but two, just move past it, move on and really focus on this next upcoming season.

“For me, I feel like I've learned to be resilient, especially after the bowl game,” Arnold said. “I had that experience my freshman year of high school. It's different at the college level; there's a lot more eyes on me, a lot more negativity that can be thrown your way. Just being resilient and being able to overcome that adversity was huge for me in the bowl game, and will be this fall because we’ll face adversity. 

“So adversity is coming your way, and being resilient and be able to fight that is something I learned about myself this spring.”