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Oklahoma's defense handed the offense one of the best field position advantages in the country last year. The offense did almost nothing with it — 111th out of 136 at turning field position into points, after being top-12 in seven of the eight years before that. It's the second-biggest two-year collapse in that stat out of 639 team-seasons since 2016. Almost all of it happens in one place on the field, and it traces back to a run game that finished 127th in open-field yards.

Only 60% of drives that got to the opponent's 40 went on to reach the redzone, down from 85% in 2023.

OU's first down success rate from the opponent's 40 to 20 was just 28%, down from 44-64% going back to 2016. Meaning, 3/4 of first down snaps in scoring territory result in no gain.

On standard downs, OU finished 98th in the country after finishing 6th in 2023 and their 2nd average yards to go was the longest average (7.98) in a decade.

Am I concerning you yet?

2025 Metric ranks:

Front-seven havoc: 1st

Stuff rate: 2nd

Line yards allowed: 2nd

Rushing success rate allowed: 2nd

DB havoc: 49th

Explosiveness allowed: 109th

The best disruption front in America — and a bottom-quartile unit at preventing the big play once you got past it. Nobody says this out loud because the scoring numbers were gorgeous.

Now the churn. Returning 2025 defensive production by group (player_season_stats.csv defensive_tot/tfl/sacks/pd + interceptions_int, weighted, matched to rosters.csv 2026 by player_id):

DL: 53.4% returns (Thomas, Halton, D. Williams, Jones gone)

LB: 55.4%

DB: 66.0% returns

So the group that was 1st in the country returns the least. The group that was 49th returns the most. The public story is inverted.

Looking at college football data's new weighted efficiency rating (CORE), I compared OU's offensive and defensive average ratings from 2016-19 vs 2024-25 and OU has the biggest shift in performance between units more than any other team.

It raises the question: Is Venables able to stabilize the offense or are we destined to be stuck on this rollercoaster indefinitely?

Methodology:

Step 1: Pick two windows. The "before" is 2016–2019 (peak Air Raid Oklahoma). The "after" is 2024–2025 (Venables's SEC era). I used four years on the early side and two on the late side, then averaged the ranks within each window to smooth out single-season noise.

Step 2: Rank every team within its own season. CORE offense, rank 1 = best. CORE defense, rank 1 = best (lowest allowed). This matters because there were 128 teams in 2016 and 136 in 2025 — ranking within season makes the numbers comparable.

Step 3: Compute the offense swing. OU's early-window offense ranks: 1st, 1st, 1st, 4th → mean 1.8. Late-window: 117th, 99th → mean 108.0. The swing is 108.0 − 1.8 = 106.2 rank positions worse.

Step 4: Compute the defense swing. Early-window defense ranks: 75th, 62nd, 110th, 69th → mean 79.0. Late-window: 9th, 3rd → mean 6.0. The swing is 79.0 − 6.0 = 73.0 rank positions better.

Step 5: Add them. 106.2 + 73.0 = 179.2. That's the combined identity swap — how many total rank positions moved across both sides of the ball, in opposite directions.

Step 6: Run it for everyone. Same calculation for all 130 FBS teams present in both windows. Second place is Toledo at 122.2. Third is FIU at 86.8. Oklahoma is 47% ahead of second place.