Takeaways from OU's embarrassing loss to Georgia

The Oklahoma Sooners dropped to 2-2 in the 2026 season on Saturday. OU was thoroughly embarrassed on the road in Athens against the Georgia Bulldogs, losing by a final score of 41-13 between the hedges at Sanford Stadium.

The Sooners saw what a national contender looks like this week, and they also saw how far away they are from that level of play. Head coach Brent Venables’ team has gone backward in every single way since last season’s 10-win, College Football Playoff campaign. After a magical “Hard to Kill” Red November that produced four straight wins to make the CFP, Oklahoma is now just hard to watch.

The offense has taken multiple steps backward, and there isn’t a single thing the unit can consistently do well. Venables is trotting half a football team onto the field each week, and somehow he still expects to come away with wins. It’s been that way for most of his tenure. The defense, while still solid, doesn’t have the same ferocity that it did last year, and the special teams have regressed, making mistakes they didn’t last season.

That’s an indictment of Venables’ ability to continue leading this program. It’s his fifth season, and this is the product that Oklahoma is putting on the field each week. It won’t get any easier, and it’s hard to see how this team can even reach a bowl game at this point.

OU has fallen completely flat, despite having sky-high preseason expectations. The amount of talent on this team doesn’t match the way the Sooners play on Saturdays. Offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle’s offense is a complete mess, and quarterback John Mateer is a shell of his former self. If the defense doesn’t play absolutely perfect football, there’s no shot at victory against a Power Four team, and they were far from perfect against the Dawgs.

Let’s break it down: Here are three takeaways from OU-Georgia.

Oklahoma’s number one priority this offseason was becoming a better rushing team. Secondarily, they prioritized developing an offense that didn’t require Mateer to do everything. Well, that was a waste of time, because OU is now even worse at running the ball, and Mateer is still being asked to do everything. Sure, the defense wasn’t great and gave up way too many yards and points, but it’s hard to be too tough on those guys. They at least look like they want to be out there. They at least have some idea of how to do their jobs.

Arbuckle’s seat has to be smoking hot now, and this offense isn’t going to be fixed this season. It might not ever be fixed as long as Venables is the head coach. OU is playing with half a team, and they’re getting demolished in the SEC. One year after a playoff berth, the Sooners are a much worse team this year.

Venables is used to seeing his defense break opposing quarterbacks, but his program is breaking his own quarterbacks, year after year. The 2024 season saw the Jackson Arnold-Michael Hawkins Jr. debacle, as two promising young QBs saw their confidence shattered in a six-win season. Arnold still hasn’t recovered, and Hawkins had to leave and find the perfect system for his skill set in order to have success.

Now, we’re seeing a repeat with Mateer. When he arrived at OU, he was a gunslinging, playmaking superstar of a signal-caller. After a season and a third under Venables, he’s lost his confidence and is a turnover machine that played embarrassingly bad against Georgia. It’s Mateer’s fault, it’s Arbuckle’s fault, it’s Venables’ fault, and it’s Nagy’s fault.

Oklahoma will be looking to bounce back following their bye week, when they’ll take on … the top-ranked team in America in the rival Texas Longhorns, who are also going to be coming off of a bye week. The Red River Shootout has not been kind to Venables, as Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian typically has his number. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.

The folks in charge at OU love Venables, and there’s no question that he’s a good man. His extension and high buyout probably keep him safe this year, unless this season goes completely off the rails, which it might. However, the entire coaching staff and roster should be coaching and playing for their jobs right now, after a completely unacceptable loss. Oklahoma is one of the no-doubt blue-blood programs of college football, but this is where Sooner Football is right now. OU is in a bad place, and it’s hard to see it turning around any time soon. The days of Gary Gibbs, Howard Schnellenberger, and John Blake may very well be upon Oklahoma once again.

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This article originally appeared on Sooners Wire: Takeaways from OU’s embarrassing loss to Georgia