Ben Arbuckle knows what he wants Oklahoma's offense to be. "Tough. Physical. And that showing up on film," he said Tuesday.
Okay, great. What formation does Tough and Phyiscal line up in? What are its base plays? What concepts can it lay its hat on? Sixteen games into Arbuckle's tenure at Oklahoma, that question has not been answered. And it's a big problem.
Following a stunning yet all-too-familiar 17-10 loss at Michigan in Week 2, Oklahoma came home to a 14-6 win over New Mexico that felt and played like a step backward from Michigan.
It's left the 31-year-old Arbuckle in the spotlight, particularly heading into Saturday's trip to No. 2 Georgia (3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN). More on that later.
What is Oklahoma's offense, and what is (was) it supposed to be? "I'm always looking to evolve as an offensive coordinator. There's a lot of things that I do that are non-negotiable staples, and we still do a lot of those today. But based off personnel, the teams that you go against, I think you have to always continue evolving. Us coaches, we meet and talk about it consistently throughout spring ball, fall camp, the summer. What do we need to do, what's our personnel, how can we put them in position to go make plays and be effective. I think an ever-evolving thing," Arbuckle said. "There's things that we do that are things that I've done since Western Kentucky, those are non-negotiables, core things that I believe in. But we're always looking to evolve and play to our personnel's strengths."
Non-negotiables, but always looking to evolve. Core beliefs, but scheming based off matchups.
Honestly, that all tracks with how Oklahoma has played thus far. Leaning into a remade tight end room and a veteran offensive line, Oklahoma ran 12 personnel on 85 percent of its snaps in a season-opening 51-0 win over UTEP -- nearly plays in one game as it ran out of that personnel grouping in the entire 2025 season. In the Michigan loss, 12 personnel usage was cut in half.
The staff around (and above) Arbuckle. Hired before his 30th birthday, Arbuckle didn't have an established network or leverage to fill out a staff around him. Quarterbacks coach John Kuceyeski is the only on-field staffer to follow Arbuckle from Pullman. Offensive line coach is nearly a quarter century older than him and practically has tenure in Norman; 54-year-old Bill Bedenbaugh is in his 14th season as a Sooner, working for his third head coach. Wide receivers coach Emmett Jones is an Air Raid disciple, but had never worked with Arbuckle previously. Running backs coach Deland McCullough is a veteran at the position, with a decade and a half of experience coaching running backs across the Power 4 and NFL. Tight ends coach Jason Witten had no prior college experience.
Oh, and the offensive staff room also has Kevin Wilson. OU's offensive coordinator from 2002-10, Wilson rejoined the staff ahead of last season as an analyst and was promoted to assistant head coach for offense and given a raise to $500,000 in the offseason.
Add it all up, and Arbuckle's above answer makes sense.
Does the buck even stop with Buck? Unmentioned until now because it didn't need reminding, Arbuckle works for head coach Brent Venables, who is also Oklahoma's defensive coordinator. The Sooners have been excellent defensively, ranking 23rd in yards per play in 2024, 4th last season and 10th to date in 2026. But it seems like defensive dominance has come hand-in-hand with offensive ineptitude. At the same time OU has ranked among the top 25 in yards per play defense, the Sooners' offense has ranked 124th, 97th, and 99th. After losing coordinator Jeff Lebby to Mississippi State after the 2023 season, Seth Littrell lasted just seven games in 2024, necessitating Arbuckle's hire in 2025.
More than that, Oklahoma's offensive players seem to get injured at a higher rate than their defensive counterparts, leading many to wonder if Venables structures practice to prepare his defense at the expense of his offense.
The offensive struggles create a negative feedback loop within Oklahoma football. The more the offense struggles, the more Venables has to lean on his defense, knowing his team is unlikely to win if the opponent scores in the 20s.
Injuries are a constant. Optimism in Norman was built around an offensive line that returned four of five starters. However, the Sooners have yet to play a game with their on-paper starting lineup, with franchise left tackle Michael Fasusi currently questionable for Saturday. No. 2 wide receiver Trell Harris was lost for the "foreseeable future" in the Michigan game. Even healthy positions have been a revolving door: against New Mexico, John Mateer was OU's leading ball-carrier with 10 rushes, while four Sooner running backs logged between two and eight carries. OU's leading rusher a quarter of the way into the season as 141 yards.
And speaking of Mateer. It's an open question whether he's even good. Mateer has a 10-to-9 touchdown-to-interception ratio in 11 games against the Power 4 while at OU. Oklahoma doesn't have the personnel to go ground-and-pound against an SEC schedule, but also doesn't have a quarterback that can handle a Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray-type usage rate, either.
Can Arbuckle be successful under these conditions? Can anyone? Four years after leaving Texas high school football for a quality control job at Western Kentucky, Arbuckle was the offensive coordinator at Oklahoma. That's a large jump in not a lot of time. Arbuckle rose that fast because he's yet to face real adversity in the profession, and now it's here. He's on a staff without any real allies, and with his successor seemingly waiting in the wings. The Catch-22 of the Venables/Arbuckle dilemma:
Why hire Arbuckle if you're not going to give him the leash to run his offense? And yet, considering the results thus far, does Arbuckle deserve the leash to run his offense his way?
Whatever the reasons, Arbuckle is the coordinator of the nation's 99th-ranked offense, at a place that practically invented offensive football over the past 50 years.
Venables seemed out of patience on Saturday night. "I'm not going to talk about confidence," Venables said when asked if he had confidence in Arbuckle. "He's our offensive coordinator."
The Sooners, again, play No. 2 Georgia on Saturday, and then go into a potentially ominous bye week before facing No. 1 Texas on Oct. 10. For Arbuckle, it may be now or never against perhaps the best defense he's ever coached against.