Oklahoma-LSU Preview: One Big Thing — Challenge Becomes Opportunity

If the Sooners can turn Saturday's challenge into an opportunity, then this season can be salvaged, and OU could get a boost in both recruiting and in hiring an OC.

Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables / Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

BATON ROUGE, LA — Oklahoma’s game on Saturday is more opportunity than challenge.

Not that beating LSU won’t be hard. It will. Tiger Stadium at night is no place to finish a college football season. Those fans are going to be wired.

OU’s opportunity, however, comes in the form of victory.

It’s been a rotten season in Norman. No one in the Switzer Center planned on or hoped for a 7-5 record this year. But — unlikely as that might have seemed this time last week — it’s the best OU can do.

So why is Saturday such a big opportunity?

Two reasons.

Stacking a road win at LSU on top of a home win over Alabama is exactly what Brent Venables needs. Forget all the feel-good angles. Venables needs another win to absolutely certify to his talented 2025 recruiting class that he does indeed have this program headed in the right direction, that he is indeed the right man for the job, and that Oklahoma is indeed SEC ready.

A blue blood program finishing its first season in a new conference with a 3-5 league record might indicate otherwise.

But in the scope of everything that happened in 2024 — with five (now six) receivers injured, with five new starters on the offensive line playing musical chairs, with an offensive coordinator change at midseason — for OU to be able to present documented proof that the program is improving is simply huge.

That’s what beating Bama and LSU in back-to-back weeks can do.

Listen, it’s not like the 2025 recruiting class is teetering. Some commits certainly could be. And 5-star offensive tackle Michael Fasusi, with last week’s visit to Texas and this week’s visit to Texas A&M, may very well be one of them. But on the whole, Oklahoma’s incoming class currently ranks No. 10 nationally behind 20 verbal commitments, and by all accounts, the class seems to be holding firm to their pledges.

Another impressive SEC win would solidify that.

And then there’s the little matter of hiring an offensive coordinator. 

Venables is narrowing things down, and it might be Monday or Tuesday (or Sunday?) when he announces his new hire.

Whoever it is, that coach will have some heavy thinking ahead of him. He’ll have to strongly consider Venables’ station at OU. BV is under contract through 2029 and has a $43 million buyout in place, but would he survive another five-loss season? And what would that mean for his own job security? And can a new OC succeed with the offensive personnel OU has coming back next year?

It’s a lot to think about.

But Oklahoma going into a bowl game with a crimson elephant pelt on one wall and a purple tiger pelt on the other could be something that entices some of Venables’ top candidates to look a little longer, a little harder at Oklahoma. And what offensive coordinator wouldn't want to be backed by this type of defense?

And hey, seven wins assures a winning record. Nobody wants to go into the uncertainty of bowl season at 6-6. That happened two years ago, and a losing record left a filthy residue on the program, like a ring around the bathtub. A losing season is just gross.

Beat LSU Saturday, then roll the dice in a bowl game. Maybe 2024 can wrap up with an 8-5 record. Remember earlier this year when Venables said the 2005 and 2009 seasons, difficult as they were at the time, were some of his favorite coaching memories? 

It’s because those teams improved at the end of the year, won eight games, overcame their challenges and turned them into opportunities.