From Someone Who's Been There Before, What to Expect From Seth Littrell's Oklahoma Offense With a Young QB

Mason Fine played in Seth Littrell's offense for four seasons at North Texas, where he emerged as the best quarterback in Mean Green history.

Oklahoma offensive coordinator Seth Littrell with former quarterback Mason Fine. / Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

No one outside of Oklahoma’s locker room truly knows what to expect from the Sooners’ offense under new offensive coordinator Seth Littrell, especially with a pair of young quarterbacks at the top of the depth chart.

But Littrell’s former gunslinger has a pretty good idea. 

Sophomore Jackson Arnold, who has started one game in his college career, will be QB1 in the Sooners’ first season in the SEC and first campaign with Littrell calling the plays. Arnold’s backup on the first depth chart was freshman Michael Hawkins Jr., so between the two, there’s one full game of experience. But, like Arnold and Hawkins, Mason Fine, too, was once an inexperienced quarterback trying to lead Littrell’s offense. 

“For me, it's easy for a quarterback when you're in college to understand the offense and know where you're supposed to go with the ball and who you're supposed to be looking at and how you're going to be reading coverages,” Fine said. “Littrell is all over that. He'll teach the basics of a D1 quarterback – where your eyes should be, how your feet are supposed to be, who you're looking at on this play. But the biggest thing is, what I think changes from being a good college quarterback to a great college quarterback, is all the things kind of off the field, and at the end of the day, I think that's where Littrell excelled at with me."

Statistically, Fine is the best quarterback to ever run Littrell’s offense. He was a four-year starter at North Texas, where Littrell was the head coach for seven years before going to OU. Littrell took a risk that panned out great in his first recruiting class as a head coach, being Fine’s only Division I offer out of Locust Grove High School, which ran a similar Air Raid offense that UNT would under Littrell and offensive coordinator Graham Harrell. Fine was underrecruited because of his size, graciously listed at 5-foot-11 on UNT’s roster. 

Prepared to be a backup his first year, Fine emerged as QB1 by Week 2 of his freshman campaign and by the end of the season was on the Conference USA All-Freshman Team after throwing for 1,572 yards and six touchdowns in nine starts. He finished his UNT career with 12,505 passing yards and 93 touchdowns – both program records. He also owns UNT’s single-season passing records for yardage (4,052), touchdowns (31), completions (324) and pass attempts (511). 

And he remains grateful to Littrell for taking that chance.

“He didn't teach me how to be a quarterback, but he taught me how to lead an offense on and off the field," Fine said. "How to be a leader, whether it's be vocal or how to talk to guys, whether if it's a guy you need to get on him every day and make sure he's practicing hard, or if it's a guy you need to pull to the side not in front of everyone, because you're dealing with different types of personalities. You got 100 guys in the locker room. Everyone's kind of different. He's really good at being able to read people and he was good at teaching me that, of how to be the leader out there on the field.

"At the end of the day, a quarterback is just another coach, except he's on the field. I think that's where he excelled at with me and I took my game up. Obviously you got to know the offense, but you'll do that throughout the game week. … But at the end of the day, a good quarterback will do all those things on the field, but he's a leader, and I think from a young quarterback that's tough at first, but if you can step into that leadership role, the offense runs through you. As long as you do your job, don't try to do too much and be another coach out on the field, I think that's where a young quarterback can learn a lot from Littrell.” 

Arnold had the opposite experience to getting to be QB1 under Littrell. While Fine finally got a second star next to his name after the UNT offer, Arnold committed to the Sooners as a 5-star prospect from the 2023 class. He was already at OU when Littrell got to Norman as an offensive analyst before last season. Now, Arnold is QB1 his second year on campus. 

“I don't know a whole lot, but I know he's a ball player,” Fine said of Arnold. “I know he's got all the physical tools. And it should be fun in this offense. That's another thing with a young quarterback, if the game speed slows down, man, it's easy out there. In an offense like this, you're going to rep the same play so much and know where you're looking at, you should be able to anticipate and be accurate. And that's all quarterback is in college. …

“And I know Jackson Arnold has all the tools to make any throw out there, so it'll be exciting to watch him grow as he continues to get more game reps and stuff like that, and especially in this offense, more reps you get, the more defenses you see against it, it just gets easier.” 

Fine said as he grew under Littrell, the offense also evolved. A Littrell offense will always have an emphasis on the run game, which benefits a young QB, but Littrell also has splashes of other successful offenses and will adapt with his personnel. 

“I think that's great when an OC just doesn't say, ‘This is my stuff and we're going to run it,’” Fine said. “He evolves to your personnel and what's going to put those players in the best chance to be successful. So I think as Jackson Arnold gets more game reps, Littrell will see what he's really great at, maybe what he struggles with, and he's going to play to his strength.”

That offense could evolve into a whole new form when Arnold’s time is over one day and Hawkins presumably takes over. Rivals ranked Hawkins as the No. 3 dual-threat quarterback in the 2024 class and OU head coach Brent Venables also praised Hawkins’ ability to beat defenses with his legs. That kind of skill set could thrive in Littrell’s offense. 

“I'll joke around about this, but the whole time when I was at North Texas, I think Littrell deep down wanted me to be a true dual-threat quarterback,” Fine said. “Me, I was just a little smaller. I wasn't the greatest athlete in the world. But I think Littrell wants that deep down. But you go with the best quarterback at the time. I don't want to put down Jackson Arnold or anything, because if a guy can sling it, and like I said earlier, he's gonna work with his strengths, but a dual threat and this system, oh, I think Littrell, that's kind of his bread and butter of wanting a dual threat.” 

Although Fine has an idea of what’s coming in this new era of OU’s offense and for these young gunslingers, he’ll be late to knowing for sure. As Littrell calls plays for the Sooners for the first time this season against Temple at 6 p.m. Friday, his protege will be making his debut as an offensive coordinator at Salina High School after Fine’s career in the Canadian Football League recently ended. And the Wildcats will be running that same offense Fine did at UNT under Littrell and Harrell. 

“I learned it at Locust Grove and North Texas,” Fine said. “You've been at kind of programs that really aren't used to winning. You got to install those habits of a winning program in that culture. And I've had great experience at North Texas and Locust, where I've been around great coaching leaders that have shown me the way. Football (wise), very influenced by Littrell there at North Texas, but also I know how to run a program. I'm trying to install to these teenagers, these young men, what it takes to win and how it looks, because they don't know how it looks. You tell them, but you got to show them. … 

“All those things I learned at North Texas at the next level, I try to install to these kids now because that's the difference between being 6-4 and being a great playoff team is these little things, and that's what I harp on.”