Postgame P (UNLOCKED): Unicycles, Canadian rock bands and the Ott quandary

Editor’s note: As is the Week 1 custom at OUInsider.com, this column is unlocked and available for public consumption. Future editions of the column will be accessible by subscribers only.

Folks, we need to have a candid discussion about two things: vanilla and the asterisk.

With regard to the former, it has become synonymous in the modern vernacular with “uninteresting.” Anything that lacks character or nuance could be described as vanilla. Vanilla, to many who reside within this great nation, is little more than the Default Ice Cream Flavor. It’s an emblem of the status quo.

But that’s somewhat disingenuous. The Barenaked Ladies once called vanilla “the finest of the flavors,” and while that may be a bit of a stretch, vanilla is indispensable and versatile. It’s been a staple of regional cuisines and flavor palettes since at least the fifteenth century, when the Aztecs began to incorporate it into their food and beverages. Anyone who has prepared a batch of chocolate chip cookies and accidentally forgotten the vanilla extract along the way can attest to the reality that vanilla packs a crucial punch.

In fact, real vanilla is very expensive, even today. Most of the vanilla-flavored ice cream, pudding, coffee creamer, etc. that you purchase at the store isn’t made with real vanilla. Vanilla’s steep price point leads many merchants to opt for artificial substitutes that merely emanate its flavor profile.

Why do I say all of this? I say all of this because I’ve seen about a thousand different people refer to the Sooners’ game plan last night as “vanilla.” It wasn’t. That’s disrespectful to vanilla. The Sooners’ game plan lacked flavor entirely. Ever had unflavored Greek yogurt? That’s what Oklahoma brought to the table last night against Illinois State. Ben Arbuckle and the offensive staff utilized simple pass concepts and even simpler run concepts. A jet sweep (gulp) might have been the spiciest thing we saw all night from Arbuckle. It was as if the Oklahoma staff determined to put absolutely nothing useful on tape for Michigan.

And you know what? More power to them. The Sooners didn’t cover the spread last night. They didn’t run away from Illinois State. That game didn’t feel like a blowout. But OU won handily, 35-3, without giving the Wolverines anything to study on tape. I would posit that a 35-3 win in which you utilize 10 percent of your playbook is far preferable to a 70-3 win in which you utilize 30 percent of it.

Lest I neglect the second point I intended to unpack, let’s briefly discuss the asterisk. You all know what the asterisk signifies. I’m not going to bore you with an extensive history of the asterisk. But the reason I bring it up is because I don’t want to engage in meaningless debates with comment-section denizens all week. Thus, I am placing one giant asterisk on this entire column.

Said asterisk is intended to signify that YES, IT WAS ILLINOIS STATE. All of what I’m about to write falls under the expansive shadow of that asterisk. Do not take any of my words and rebut them with “dURrRrR iT WaS iLliNoIs StAtE.” I am aware that it was Illinois State. All of my takeaways, opinions and comments are crafted with that reality in mind. I am not ignorant of context, nor should you be. It was Illinois State. Act, react and post accordingly.

With that said, let’s proceed — beginning, of course, with the things that I am pissed about.

Not Gonna Sugarcoat It… I’m Pissed

— Jaren Kanak had five catches for 90 yards! Good on him. He demonstrated a propensity to get open yesterday, and as simple as that is, it hasn’t been a defining characteristic of Oklahoma’s starting tight end since 2022. That is encouraging. What is not encouraging, however, is that the very first time Kanak got the opportunity to catch a pass and run with it, he fumbled the football. Ball security is a truly maddening Achilles’ heel for a talented playmaker; anyone who watched Taylor Tatum last season can attest to this. When flashes of genuine brilliance are undermined by a propensity to commit turnovers, the product becomes quite polarizing. One would — and should — assume that keeping the football secure will be a particular point of emphasis for Kanak moving forward. It’s a mistake that is far better made against Illinois State than against Michigan or Auburn, when the margin for error is significantly smaller. That said, if Kanak is to maintain his starting role at tight end (and thus increase the ceiling for Oklahoma’s offense), he can’t make fumbling a habit. If it’s a one-off deal and the lesson is learned, so be it. If not, he could become the Sooners’ new Tatum, i.e. the guy that compels you to hold your breath every time the football’s in his hands — and not necessarily for the right reasons.

— I wasn’t thrilled with the play of the offensive line Saturday. Do I think it’s remotely indicative of what this unit can be in 2025? No, but it does make me worry a bit about depth. The reason I don’t think it’s of substantial concern is that Derek Simmons and Heath Ozaeta didn’t play, while Jacob Sexton played all of two drives. That was not Oklahoma’s first-team offensive line on the field yesterday. Even so, I did expect that the Sooners’ second-teamers would be able to whip Illinois State down in the trenches and generate a good, positive push on every single snap. I didn’t see that happening. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t bother me a bit. I’ll say this, though: I was pleasantly, PLEASANTLY surprised by Luke Baklenko. I thought he looked really solid at left tackle, and far exceeded the modest expectations I had for him based on fall camp buzz. If there was a legit winner up front yesterday for OU, I’d give the nod to 78. On a scale of Spencer Brown to Trent Williams, he looks like a solid Erik Swenson at minimum.

— I’ve held my Jovantae Barnes stock for so long, man. I want to believe he’s got something left in the tank after two years of constant injury struggles. But I’ve never been closer to just waving the white flag on the Barnes experience. He didn’t play well last night, and Tory Blaylock pretty definitively established the upper hand over him in the RB pecking order. Everything that has seemingly plagued Barnes since his freshman season — lack of vision, lack of burst, lack of decisiveness — showed back up on last night’s tape. He finished with seven carries for a whopping nine yards. And the running lanes were there. He had several opportunities to break off chunk gains, and simply missed the hole. After Brent Venables remarked last week that Barnes was coming off the best fall camp of his career, I was optimistic that we’d see a reinvigorated version of the senior running back. That wasn’t the case Saturday. I’m not completely writing him off after a rough debut, but he’s going to keep ceding touches to Blaylock unless he finds a rhythm quickly.

Must… Stay… Positive

— I am perhaps unreasonably high on Courtland Guillory. That kid, to me, is an absolute star in the making. And in fact, he accomplished something that I didn’t know was possible: if only for a moment last night, he made me forget that Eli Bowen exists. I had to remind myself at a certain point that he’s only running with the starters because Bowen is hurt. Guillory got flagged for a ticky-tack pass interference penalty last night, but other than that, he played pretty fantastic ball and led the Sooners’ defensive backfield in snaps (34). He’s tenacious, he’s lengthy and he’s technically sound. I don’t think any Sooner fan should be apprehensive about the prospect of Guillory lining up opposite some of the SEC’s top receivers. I’m fully confident he can hold his own no matter the matchup. And I genuinely believe that provided he stays healthy, he’ll become the Sooners’ most impactful and reliable cornerback since Derrick Strait. If he’s regarded as the best cornerback in college football come 2027, I won’t be surprised in the slightest.

— Keontez Lewis? Hell yeah, Keontez Lewis. How about a career-high nine catches for 119 yards and two touchdowns in your Oklahoma debut? That’ll fly. The redshirt senior was arguably the least ballyhooed of Oklahoma’s five offseason transfer additions at receiver. But he’s off to the hottest start by a country mile. And he looked good on Saturday. He didn’t look like a guy that’s only going to make plays when vastly inferior opponents stand on the opposite sideline. Isaiah Sategna (still my pick to lead the team in catches and yards, by the way) caught two passes for 16 yards on Saturday. Jer’Michael Carter played five snaps. Josiah Martin didn’t see the field at all, and Javonnie Gibson is still hurt. Lewis is the one carrying the flag for this transfer WR group right now. And until Gibson returns from injury, the starting job at the X position appears to be his. Buzz from within the program is that NFL scouts had started to pay legit attention to Lewis, even before his impressive Oklahoma debut. He certainly did what he needed to do Saturday to ensure that those scouts keep inquiring.

— John Mateer looked great. There was a certain element of nostalgia present in the experience of watching John Mateer play quarterback last night. It genuinely felt like watching any and all of Oklahoma’s NFL-bound signal-callers of yesteryear. Mateer looked like a pro. He made fast, correct decisions from the pocket, and he executed with clinical precision all night long. At times, watching the Oklahoma iteration of Jackson Arnold felt like watching someone learn to ride a unicycle. It never seemed that Arnold trusted his eyes and his instincts (though he DID have a patchwork offensive line and poor coaching, which no doubt contributed), and that manifested in the form of indecisiveness. Mateer had full confidence in his reads, and knew when he had to take the easy stuff and when he could lay a ball out for his receiver to go make a play. He only really took one over-the-top downfield shot, a throw on which he missed Sategna. But his three touchdown passes — two to Lewis and one to Burks — were all beautifully executed, as was his 27-yard strike to Jacob Jordan that set up Mateer’s own rushing TD. When the dust settled, the Wazzu transfer had completed 30 of 37 passes for 392 yards, three touchdowns and one interception, which came on what Mateer described as a “bad ball” over the middle to Deion Burks. That one ill-fated throw aside, it was a darn near flawless night for the Sooners’ QB1, and it was the type of performance you fully expect from a top-tier SEC signal-caller facing an FCS defense. Mateer looked how he should have looked. That’s nothing if not encouraging.

Doomer Dad

In this portion of the column, Parker’s father, a known OU football cynic and Uncle Rico-esque former high school quarterback, weighs in with in-game observations (generally negative) on behalf of the fans who tend towards a pessimistic perspective on the Sooners.

A nondescript take on a nondescript game: Mateer looks 100 times better than Jackson Arnold… I love what I’m seeing there… I would’ve liked to see us put up more than 35 but holding them to 3 is good

Dan Hawkins Semi-Anonymous Mailbag

C_Ray33: on the injury front, how bad is it? Blaylock& Sexton left the game. Saw burks limp off at one point but he came back. Any prognosis?

The expectation is that all three will play against Michigan. Burks obviously continued to play after limping off, and while I was told Blaylock was dealing with some lingering shoulder soreness today, I don’t get the sense it will be anything that prevents him from suiting up next weekend.

Jsums81: We couldn’t run and weren’t particularly good at stopping the run today. Given this how could we possibly feel good about next weekend?

I refer you to The Asterisk, sir. The Sooners’ run concepts and blocking schemes against Illinois State were as basic as basic gets. Moreover, Jaydn Ott carried the ball one (1) time. I’m not worried about the Sooners’ run game, nor am I worried about their run defense. If they clean up the small mistakes that enabled Illinois State to pop off a few chunk runs, they’ll be darn near impenetrable. And if there’s one group on the entire team that I just refuse to speak doom over, it’s the defensive front.

Books and Football: What do you think the starting OL will be for Michigan?

I think that, left to right, you will see Jacob Sexton, Heath Ozaeta, Troy Everett, Febechi Nwaiwu and Derek Simmons. First off the pine, if necessary, are probably Michael Fasusi and Ryan Fodje.

soonerbeta: I continue to be underwhelmed by Demarco Murray as a running back coach. I see OU transfers having success all over the country and he continues to play Barnes who can’t break tackles and doesn’t have the speed. We heard Jaden Off [sic] was hurt but if he’s hurt then why is returning kicks and playing at the end of the game? Seems like a personnel decision. Why spend most of your NIL money if the rb coach won’t let the guy play?

Ott’s usage was baffling to me. Either play the guy, or don’t. I’m really not sure what good it does to have him carry the ball once. He played four offensive snaps. What was the goal there? If the Sooners wanted to keep him fresh, they should have just held him out of action. If they wanted him to get his feet wet in preparation for the Michigan game, I think they should have given him 8-10 touches at minimum. If there was some sort of master plan there, it’s lost on me. 

DallasSooner:On a level of 1-10 how worried should we be about this offensive line after one game?

My concern level is at a 5, which is exactly where it was before this game. Again, you were watching mostly second-teamers out there. I refuse to wring my hands over offensive line play when the Sooners don’t have their two starting tackles out there. We’ll see what it looks like next week against Michigan, and I think that ought to give us a much clearer picture of where that unit stands.

Sooners_p: what’s happen to Mike and Willie LB recruiting the last two cycles ? We are dangerously thin there for fieldable talent and honestly after Lewis there is a huge drop off in talent .

I think you forget that Kendal Daniels can, and will, play plenty of linebacker for Oklahoma throughout the campaign. And with the way that Reggie Powers was flying around and making plays last night, the Sooners might not need Daniels to play a ton of cheetah this year. I agree that if Owen Heinecke is playing 40 snaps a game at any point, that’s less than ideal. But given that the corps will prominently feature Daniels, Kip Lewis, Kobie McKinzie and Sammy Omosigho, I’m not terribly concerned about it at the moment. Now… if there’s an injury or two? Obviously, we’re having a different conversation at that point.

SoonerVet1: Are you worried about the RB room? Blaylock injured, Barnes looked terrible, Ott didn’t do anything during his snaps? X looked decent.

Am I worried? No. Am I surprised? Yes. I’m particularly surprised that Blaylock is compiling a serious case to be RB2 right now. But I don’t mind that, because he runs with a kind of juice that I haven’t seen from an Oklahoma running back since Eric Gray. The kid’s for real. Ott didn’t do anything because they didn’t let Ott do anything. As I mentioned previously, I’m dangerously close to out on Barnes, and I don’t think you can draw any real conclusions from Robinson’s body of work last night. It was ho-hum. Meanwhile, I am currently working to confirm that Taylor Tatum still exists. But yeah… I don’t have cause enough to be worried right now. Ask me again at the end of non-con play.

v97: At this point do we just assume Jacob Sexton’s career is pretty much over, at least at OU. Seems he either can’t get on the field or when he does, he gets injured almost immediately.

I’m not sure why we would assume his career is over. He is, and will remain, Oklahoma’s starting left tackle. And yes, he did get banged up last night, but he was kept off the field for the remainder of the game due largely to zealous precautions (and no one should mind zealous precautions after 2024). He’ll be back in the lineup next week. 

KEBoomer: Is the oline the reason we don’t make it to the sec championship? We have a top 5 qb and a top 5 defense. Hope it isn’t wasted.

Once again, KE, I don’t want to draw premature conclusions about the offensive line based on one partial set of data. If I had to guess why the Sooners won’t make the SEC championship, I would say it has much less to do with a mediocre offensive line than a lack of a truly elite, do-it-all X receiver. And maybe Javonnie Gibson turns out to be that guy. But I think that’s a necessity for the Sooners to take the next step within the SEC realm.

samcaton: Why no Fasusi?

Again… precautionary reasons. They didn’t need him last night. They didn’t need a lot of guys last night. If you don’t need your five-star freshman left tackle who’s less than two weeks removed from a fainting spell on the practice field, why play him? He’ll be active next week.

That’s What They Said

I trust Jaren. I know he’s probably the harshest critic of himself. So whenever he did that, I was like, ‘Hey dude, you’re playing your first offensive game ever. I hate to break it to you… bad things happen. Just wash it.’ Jaren’s a mentally tough kid. He really is. So I just kind of give him a little pat on the butt, a little encouragement, and said, ‘You’re good, man.’ And he was.

Ben Arbuckle, on Jaren Kanak’s fumble

Let it be noted that Jaren Kanak’s 90 receiving yards were the most by an Oklahoma tight end since Brayden Willis on October 15, 2022. Kanak also had a 48-yard catch and run, which represented the longest offensive play of the day by either team. The fumble was bad. But there was quite a bit of good from Kanak as well. He certainly did enough to earn another start next week.

They played a lot of two-high coverage, and so there’s just ‘backers in the middle of the field. And there’s more shots over the middle of the field that I missed and didn’t take. And I’ve got to get better at that. But it was a good spot that we wanted to exploit. 

John Mateer, on attacking Illinois State

The Sooners were atrocious at attacking the middle of the field through the air in 2024. And with a nod to The Asterisk, what we saw from Mateer last night was a major indicator that 2025 is going to be radically different in that regard. It’s also worth noting that he’s got receivers who can go make plays on the ball. Keontez Lewis’ second TD reception came on a genuinely athletic catch, the type of which we saw precious little last season. If Mateer can trust the likes of Lewis and Burks and Sategna (among others) to outflank defenders and make contested catches, such that he doesn’t have to throw a perfect ball every time… a whole new world opens up for OU in the passing game.

John’s very, very good at football.

Jaren Kanak, on John Mateer

Sometimes the simplest observations are the most profound.

The standard doesn’t change. It doesn’t matter who comes in the door. We’re excited. We’re gonna come with the same intentionality, the same passion, the same juice. It doesn’t change. So we’re excited. We got a good opponent coming.

Taylor Wein, on preparing for Michigan

A shoutout here to Wein, who got his first career sack last night. As flavorless as the Sooners kept things on offense, they kept things equally bland on defense. So while Wein’s statement may hold up from a player’s perspective, I think it’s a safe bet that there will be much more intentionality and passion and juice poured into this coming weekend’s matchup on the part of the coaching staff. Oklahoma did the bare minimum from a scheme standpoint to win handily over Illinois State. Now the bells and whistles come out.

I thought they did some really good things inside on the edges, and a lot of times you’ve gotta go see the tape. But I saw some disruption there, I saw them make some really good tackles, knock some people back and then I saw a couple of plays where we missed a tackle and we had a guy free a couple times. But [it’s] first game stuff. What you would expect.

Brent Venables, on his defensive line

Ifs and buts are neither candies nor nuts, but if you eliminate the Redbirds’ four chunk gains on the ground last night, the team rushed for 44 yards on 22 carries. Oklahoma allowed 10 pass completions for a grand total of 34 yards.  All in all, that’s a pretty dadgum solid defensive performance for a Week 1.

Perd Hapley Obligatory Semi-Relevant News Dump

— Shall we talk about Arch Manning? Let’s talk about Arch Manning. I’ve done my best to occupy the middle ground through years and years of Arch discourse, because I believe the middle ground is the proper ground. I’ve never made him out to be a flaming bust, nor have I crowned him God’s gift to the quarterback position. I think he’s a fine prospect with a potential future at the professional level, albeit one who has plenty of room for improvement before potential can turn to reality. So I’m not burying Arch after his milquetoast outing in Columbus yesterday. Ohio State is an excellent defensive team, and the Buckeyes had the benefit of home-field advantage. That said… some of Arch’s tape from yesterday’s game is ALARMINGLY rough. I don’t think I’m the only one who perceives that he lacks confidence, and it compromised his mechanics, accuracy and decision-making process yesterday. He was the parking boot on the Lambo that is the Longhorn offense. He was the one that limited Texas’ offensive capabilities. And the Longhorns are 0-1 as a result. Fortunately, Arch gets the benefit of facing three straight cupcakes (San Jose State, UTEP and Sam Houston) before he has to go on the road to Gainesville on Oct. 4. Thus, it’ll probably be another month before we can get a firm handle on whether his confidence has been repaired. But it seems nonexistent right now.

— Caden Durham might turn out to be THE what-if story of this generation for Oklahoma. He’s a double legacy prospect, the son of two OU track alumni. His recruitment came down to OU and LSU. And in the end, he chose the Tigers, believing that he could make a greater (and faster) impact in Baton Rouge than he could in Norman. And he’s wasted no time down in the Boot. He enjoyed a sensational freshman campaign last year, then kicked off his sophomore season with 74 yards and a TD in LSU’s road upset over Clemson last night. Especially if the Taylor Tatum experiment does not yield favorable results in the end, the Oklahoma staff is going to face the music from its own fanbase at some point over the Durham saga. The kid was always a bit of a maverick, and simply had a desire to go a different direction — despite the fact that Oklahoma hosted him on an official visit with the full intention of taking his commitment. Will that salve the sting for the majority of Sooner Nation? It will not.

— The decision that the Nico Iamaleava puppeteer(s) made on behalf of Nico Iamaleava this spring might just go down as one of the most egregious miscalculations in the NIL era. Because the early vibes for Iamaleava out at UCLA are… not good. After his memorable departure from Tennessee over NIL compensation, Iamaleava landed in Westwood and took the reins as the Bruins’ starting quarterback. On Saturday night, his first taste of action in the blue and gold resulted in… a 43-10 drubbing at the hands of Utah. Iamaleava went 11-of-22 for 136 yards, a touchdown and an interception. He is devoid of elite weapons, devoid of a capable rushing attack (Iamaleava himself led the team with 47 yards on the ground) and staring down the barrel at a less-than-dandy Big Ten schedule. The Bruins will be lucky to get bowl eligible in 2025, and the grass is already looking much greener on the side of the fence that Iamaleava departed. His replacement at Tennessee, Joey Aguilar, threw for 247 yards and three touchdowns Saturday as the Vols spanked Syracuse.

Bishop Sycamore Shameless Sham of the Week

Come on. I know what you wanted. You scrolled to this section of the column hoping to see Texas. You wanted to see me excoriate Texas.

Unfortunately, Texas can’t claim the crown this week. For in this case, the Sham of the Week distinction is reserved for the team that suffered easily the most stunning and embarrassing defeat of the young season. That, of course, is Alabama. Trivia question: who said these words?

“I dreamed of playing against Alabama. They don’t have Nick Saban to save them. I just don’t see them stopping me.”

The answer is Thomas Castellanos, a 5-foot-11 transfer quarterback from Boston College who got benched midway through the season last year. He promptly transferred to Florida State, where he wasted no time in posting bulletin-board material for the Crimson Tide. And then the man went and BACKED IT THE HELL UP. Never mind the fact that Florida State was coming off a 2-10 season that by every measure ranks as the worst in program history. The Seminoles pummeled Alabama from start to finish, as if the Crimson Tide were nothing more than a Group of 5 also-ran.

When a mediocre college football player on an awful football team challenges a blue-blood program in that fashion, the end of the story usually goes something like “… and then Alabama hung 50 on the Seminoles.” Never — I repeat, NEVER — does the diminutive quarterback of the 2-10 laughingstock actually go out and lead his team to a genuine throttling of the perennial title contender. But it happened this weekend. Alabama let it happen. And all of a sudden, Kalen DeBoer is facing the exact predicament that makes his job so difficult: he’s now lost TWO games that Nick Saban simply wouldn’t have lost. Oklahoma last November was strike one. Florida State yesterday represents strike two. Would the Crimson Tide actually cut bait with DeBoer if at any point he succumbs to strike three? The answer for any other coach at any other program in America would almost assuredly be no. But this is the nature of the beast when you agree to step into the sizable shoes of the greatest college football coach in the modern era. Your margin for error, right from the jump, is almost nonexistent.

And if you’re looking for an Oklahoma angle here… the Sooners travel to Tuscaloosa on Nov. 15. By that time, the Crimson Tide will have done battle with Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina and LSU. It’s a genuine possibility that the season is lost at that point, at least in the collective mind of the Alabama fanbase.

Have an outstanding week, folks, and we’ll talk again next Sunday.