The Oklahoma Sooners’ season went from bad to worse on Saturday with an ugly 35-9 loss to South Carolina. Making matters even more confusing, Sooners coach Brent Venables opted to go back to a quarterback he had benched earlier in the season, burning that quarterback’s redshirt in the process.
Oklahoma benched freshman quarterback Michael Hawkins in the first quarter of Saturday’s game after he threw a pair of interceptions. Hawkins was replaced by sophomore Jackson Arnold, a former five-star recruit who had started the Sooners’ first four games before being benched against Tennessee on Sept. 21. In bringing Arnold into the game, the Sooners burned his redshirt.
After the game, Venables said the consecutive turnovers made the switch a fairly easy decision.
Brent Venables on benching Michael Hawkins in favor of Jackson Arnold:
“Three straight drives of turnovers. That’s a pretty easy decision.” #Sooners
— Josh Callaway (@JoshMCallaway) October 19, 2024
Arnold, meanwhile, said after the game that he had told Venables he did not want to take “pointless snaps” after being benched, but only wanted to come in if it was to genuinely help win a game.
Jackson Arnold said he told Brent Venables that he didn’t want to take “pointless snaps” and burn a redshirt but that if the #Sooners needed him to help win the game he wanted to be there because of “all I’ve invested in Team 130.”
— Mason Young (@Mason_Young_0) October 19, 2024
The Sooners’ handling of Arnold has raised eyebrows all season. Last year, Venables implied that then-quarterback Dillon Gabriel, now a Heisman Trophy contender at Oregon, would have had to compete with Arnold for the starting job in 2024, suggesting the program had high hopes for Arnold. Arnold then won his first three starts, albeit not convincingly, before being benched in the loss to Tennessee. Burning his redshirt to bring him back now, with the Sooners’ season heading south quickly, feels quite odd.
Oklahoma has now lost two of their last three games, and they have only scored 12 points over the last two weeks against Texas and South Carolina. The rivalry loss to the Longhorns was particularly embarrassing, and Venables might start to feel a bit of heat if things do not turn around.
