Oklahoma's Brent Venables Discusses Strategy on QB Jackson Arnold: 'Everything Has its Time'

The Sooners' head coach revealed Saturday night that OU's 5-star freshman quarterback will redshirt, even though there may be reasons he could be playing more.

NORMAN — Now that the plan for Jackson Arnold has been made clear, there are a couple of questions Oklahoma coaches need to be asked.

As Arnold apparently will now redshirt as a true freshman for the Sooners, do OU coaches wish he would have played a full offensive package in his four games this season, rather than as a “Belldozer” type short-yardage quarterback?

And what was their level of urgency this year to get Arnold as many reps as possible knowing he’ll be taking snaps against the SEC next year?

“I don't think we have any regret, and I don't think we do anything different to develop him,” head coach Brent Venables said Tuesday during his weekly press conference. “I think you just, you have a process in how you develop and coach and bring them along, help him mature.

“And everything, again, has its time. You know, we're not good enough to look ahead like that. You know? So he's got to be prepared each and every week to play the schedule that we have right now — because he still is our backup quarterback.”

On Saturday night, Arnold suited up but sat out of the Sooners’ 59-20 home victory over West Virginia while Davis Beville came in to clean up the final moments.

“You’d like to (redshirt him) if you can, this late,” Venables said Saturday night. “We’ll see. Never say never but that’s kind of the intent right now.”

Arnold has played in four games this season — Arkansas State, SMU, Tulsa and Iowa State — and currently sits at the NCAA four-game limit for being able to keep redshirt status.

He played 32 snaps in the season opener and posted a Pro Football Focus grade of 76.3. The following week, he played just six snaps — all running plays — against SMU. That became a temporary short-yardage package the Sooners tried to utilize as they searched for an effective running game.

Arnold also played 20 snaps in a blowout at Tulsa, 14 of which were run plays. He then played four snaps — three running plays — in a blowout victory over Iowa State.

He hasn’t played since, and he hasn’t been made available for comment.

With the knowledge that Gabriel is planning to be finished with college football after this season — presumably in the NFL next year — getting Arnold ready next year for SEC play in 2024 would seem like a priority for Venables, offensive coordinator Lebby and the OU coaching staff.

After Iowa State, it didn’t work out.

Playing Arnold in a close game against Texas seemed unlikely. The Sooners never got the separation they wanted in a two-point home victory over Central Florida, so he didn’t play that day.

And of course it’s difficult to get a true freshman QB — even a 5-star as tantalizingly talented as Arnold — snaps in games that became losses at Kansas and Oklahoma State.

So when Beville came in to close against WVU, the coaching staff’s plans became apparent: Arnold will redshirt.

If, that is, nothing long-term happens to Gabriel.

If Gabriel needs to miss an extended period for any reason, it seems entirely likely that Arnold would replace him rather than Beville.

“A lot of that is the course of the season and how things have gone and you're always trying to be mindful of that for every player,” Venables said Tuesday, “and sometimes you can potentially do it and then sometimes that was the plan and then there's disaster happens and then you got to make a hard right-hand turn.”

Venables was the defensive coordinator at OU in 2004 when Heisman winner Jason White returned as the starter, Paul Thompson was the long-term backup who redshirted, Rhett Bomar redshirted as a true freshman and Tommy Grady served as the one who came in late in blowouts for mop-up duty.

That strategy eventually served OU well as Grady transferred, Bomar was dismissed and Thompson had to switch back from wide receiver to quarterback to save the season and win the Big 12 Championship.

“And so, you know, you're always looking at plan A and plan B, best-case scenario, worst-case scenario,” Venables said, “but he's still been able to take all the reps, just in case, you know, something unforeseen happens, just so he can stay ready.”

And to his credit, Venables said, Arnold has stayed ready.

“He's had tremendous growth and maturity,” Venables said. “You know, we give them a ton of reps. We do a lot of good-on-good. And, you know, we don't hold back — ‘OK, when Jackson's in there, let's make it easy on him.’ That's not what we do. Now, we don't make it harder. We just do what we do. And it's all hard. But he's responded. He has a wonderful attitude about all of it, you know? He sees the growth in himself — tremendous, tremendous growth and maturity both as a young person and then as a leader and as a football player.

“So, you know, Jeff has done a great job having him in a great mindset, and having him to continue to work and stay hungry and driven and so he doesn't spend any less time here. He spends a lot of extra time staying ready and just continuing to develop himself.”

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