The Sooners have put a wrap on the 2025 spring season and as attention turns towards the upcoming season, excitement surrounding the new offense is growing. Add in the injection of energy from the newest additions to the coaching staff and Oklahoma football heads into the summer with a lot of positive momentum as count down to year two in the SEC begins.
With the full spring game likely an event of the past, the first Crimson Combine still gave Sooner fans an opportunity to see what was basically a live practice. It also allowed the spotlight to shine on the new look of the Oklahoma offense and its new quarterback John Mateer.
“These guys have eaten it up since Day 1,” new Offensive Coordinator Ben Arbuckle said after the Crimson Combine. “I knew it would be that way as soon as I got here. I knew they would be hungry to learn, to get better. Probably moved a little bit faster than we anticipated. I like to be aggressive with it.”
The struggles of 2024 offensively are well documented. The passing game struggled to get anything easy. It was inefficient and lacked explosiveness. They couldn’t create a lot of plays after the catch. Oklahoma’s yards-per-attempt dropped from 9.3 in 2023 to 6.1 in 2024. But with a new approach and a new offense, the outlook is promising, and the installation of the new attack has been smooth.
“These guys have done really well with it before spring ball, the installations we did in some meetings and some walkthroughs really came to life here in spring ball,” Arbuckle said. “Everything they learned was able to directly translate in spring ball. That allowed us to progress at even faster pace than I anticipated. Now with a lot of the offense in, it’s just getting better, refining those little details on every single play.”
Having Mateer around has made the process smoother, as he’s already spent a couple of years working with Arbuckle during his two years at Washington State. The foundation laid by the offense during winter workouts translated nicely to the practice field throughout the spring, according to Head Coach Brent Venables.
“We got into a great rhythm during the course of the spring. You would never have known this was their first spring together … Maybe some of that was John Mateer being with Ben Arbuckle, the familiarity,” Venables said. “They hit the ground running. They did a wonderful job. They were really ahead of schedule for most of the spring.”
One noticeable difference during the Crimson Combine is the energy and enthusiasm that Arbuckle himself brings to the offense. The 29-year-old, first-year offensive coordinator is all over the field and brings an energy that he expects to carry over to his players.
“If I expect those players to be out there flying around and be urgent and be highly detailed, I better be that same way, too,” Arbuckle said. “And I bring it to the nth degree. Those players are going to know Coach Arbuckle — that he loves football, maybe even more than them. He loves being out there at practice because he knows that’s where the chemistry of the team happens.
“I’m going to bring it every day at practice. They kids do, too, feed off it and it’s a lot of fun.”
Now the challenge for Arbuckle is to ensure that Mateer and the rest of the offense continue to mature and grow during the most important part of the offseason schedule – summer workouts. The ability to be successful during the summer is paramount to a team’s success in the fall.
“A lot of the growth in the offseason comes in the summer,” Mateer said. “You build a structure of leaders and followers and you really build a culture. Because when the coaches aren’t there, if everybody wants to goof off and the leaders want to goof off, you’re not going to get anything out of practice. That’s not going to happen here.
“The summer’s about investing; you have so much time, you don’t have classes and then you can just do whatever you want. As long as you choose to play football and get better at football, it’s great.”
The enthusiasm and youth of the new members of the coaching staff is not restricted to the offensive side of the football. The Crimson Combine was the first chance Sooner fans had to see new linebacker coaches Nate Dreiling and Wes Goodwin in action. Dreiling and Goodwin made an instant impact on the linebacker room, especially on projected starter Kip Lewis.
“(Dreiling) pours his all into us, and that’s what I love about him,” said redshirt junior linebacker Kip Lewis. “You’ll go to war with somebody who stands up for you and gives you everything that he’s got. So that’s what I love about him.”
Wes Goodwin reunites with Brent Venables after spending the last seven seasons at Clemson, three of those as the defensive coordinator when he replaced Venables after he left to take the job at Oklahoma. All totaled, Goodwin spent 13 years at Clemson and coached alongside Venables for eight of those seasons.
“No one’s a better recruiter,” Goodwin said about Venables. “No one’s going to outwork him. No one’s a better teacher and coach of defensive football, I believe, in this country.”
Dreiling brings his hands-on approach to the linebacker room after spending last season as the interim coach at Utah State. The 34-year-old has already been a defensive coordinator at three different stops and was a standout linebacker during his playing days at Pittsburg State.
“You always try to think ahead at linebacker,” Dreiling said. “Linebacker is not about how fast you run. It’s awesome if you could run fast, but it’s how fast you process, right? And how do you process fast? By having fast eyes, by knowing what’s coming ahead, by film study. It’s all those little things and that’s what I try to instill in our players. For me, it’s all eyes. It’s all mental up top.”
Dreiling had taken the defensive coordinator position at Arkansas State when Venables called him with an opportunity to come to Norman. Dreiling jumped at the chance to coach with one of the greatest defensive minds in college football and has relished it since his first moments stepping on campus.
“It’s been very special, and my time here has been awesome so far. I’ve learned a lot and the best part about this place is the players that Coach V has brought in,” Dreiling said. “We don’t have any ‘issue’ kids on the team. It’s a bunch of people that are hungry and humble and wanting to get this thing going where it needs to be. I think we’re all excited for that next chapter.”
Spring football will continue to evolve and change as the college football schedule is reevaluated and adjusted. But for the upcoming season, the Sooners appear to have taken full advantage of the opportunity to get better and install a new offensive approach. With solid leadership and the addition of enthusiastic and talented coaches, Oklahoma is on a solid path towards marked improvement in the 2025 season.– BSM
By Chris Plank
