Oklahoma-Navy: One Big Thing — Here's Why This Game Actually Does Matter

The Sooners can have a winning record or a losing record for the second time under Brent Venables, but there's more at stake than that.

Oklahoma quarterback Michael Hawkins / Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

FORT WORTH — It comes down to this.

If Oklahoma beats Navy on Friday at Amon G. Carter Stadium, the Sooners will have a winning record for the second time in three years under Brent Venables.

If the Midshipmen beat the Sooners in their Armed Forces Bowl showdown on the TCU campus, then OU will have a losing record for the second time in Venables’ three seasons.

“I don’t really look at it that way,” Venables said Thursday during a press conference at the downtown Omni Hotel. “It’s the next game. It’s the biggest game of the year. It’s what’s right in front of us right now.”

Whether Sooner Nation buys or sells Venables’ pitch that he isn’t looking at Navy as a win-or-lose proposition that will help define Oklahoma’s 2024 season is, at this point, irrelevant.

As they say, it is what it is.

If the Sooners win, they’ll be 7-6. If they lose, they’ll be 6-7.

It is most definitely the next game, but unlike many of OU’s peer programs competing in the 12-team College Football Playoff, it’s also the last game. There’s nothing beyond this for Oklahoma’s Team 130. One game. One shot. One opportunity — to win.

But it is not the biggest game of the year. That happened back on Nov. 23, when Oklahoma shocked the college football world and stunned the Alabama Crimson Tide — and thus actually punched their ticket to bowl season. Without that game, there is no Armed Forces Bowl for OU fans. Without that game, any support and goodwill Venables clings to today would be all but gone.

But while many OU fans have tempered their enthusiasm about their favorite team closing the season against a service academy squad from the American Athletic Conference in TCU’s stadium just 3 hours south of Norman on a chilly morning in late December, this is still an important game.

Who wants to finish a season with a losing record? In the strictest sense of the word, losing records are for losers.

Not for one of college football’s most decorated, most celebrated programs.

And yet …

When bowl assignments were issued, OU opened this game as a 9-point favorite. Now, the Sooners are favored by just 2 1/2, according to FanDuel. 

In between, the OU roster all but collapsed from within (25 players have hit the transfer portal, and the top to defenders have opted out of the bowl; the game roster now consists of 56 scholarship players, and Venables said 24 true freshmen now populate the two-deep), and Navy rocked No. 22-ranked Army 31-13.

“We put everything we got into winning this game,” Venables said. “We have confidence in the work that we’ve put in, and it creates momentum; maybe you could say that.” 

Make no mistake: this Oklahoma team isn’t going “create momentum” for 2025 by beating Navy. The Sooners aren’t going to roll the Midshipmen and then spin that into a spot in the SEC title game next December, or build off a 7-6 season to land a spot in the College Football Playoff.

If quarterback Michael Hawkins and an entirely first-year wide receiver corps and all 24 of those freshmen on the two-deep get invaluable game experience on Friday, it’s going to accomplish almost nothing for next season.

The portal has promised that. John Mateer will impact next year’s QB race far more than how Hawkins plays against the U.S. Naval Academy. Many of those rookie wideouts have already been likely surpassed by three experienced transfers.

Venables promised more portal movement in the coming days (the portal closes on Saturday, but anyone who’s already entered their name is free to travel). And then it’ll be open again from April 16-25. There are plenty of new faces added yet to be added to next year’s roster.

That’s what will really count. That’s what matters when Venables rolls out Team 131 next August — his last, best hope to save his job and salvage the direction of Oklahoma football.

Winning is nice. Winning is certainly better than losing. But Venables also knows that at a place like Oklahoma, beating Navy in Fort Worth to finish with seven wins isn’t nearly enough to satiate OU fans, or the OU administration, or the OU regents, or the OU donors pouring into both NIL and the team’s extravagant facilities.

“I do believe in another opportunity for our young football team will pay huge dividends,” Venables said. “ … An opportunity for this team to continue to grow, develop and get better, both for this year finishing on a high note is really important for us internally, and then again, going into our offseason program, I think it would bode well.”