A season of great disappointment is bringing change to the Oklahoma football offense.
On the heels of his team's 42-25 loss Saturday, Oct. 31, to South Carolina, Brent Venables is making a change atop Oklahoma's offensive staff.
Three individuals with knowledge of the situation told USA TODAY Sports Monday, Nov. 2, that Venables has fired second-year offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle. The three people requested anonymity because the move has not been announced by the school.
After opening the season as the nation's No. 9 team in the US LBM Coaches Top 25, the Sooners had two losses before the end of September and dropped two more games last month, both at home, to Kentucky and then South Carolina.
Offense has been a persistent issue for the Sooners,
who scored 13 or fewer points in losses to Michigan, Georgia and Kentucky.
Through October, Oklahoma's offense ranked No. 108 nationally in scoring -- 22 points per game -- and 111th in total offense, 336.9 ypg.
Arbuckle was hired away from Washington State after the 2024 season, when current Sooners quarterback John Mateer also departed the Cougars to continue his career at Oklahoma.
Arbuckle inked a lucrative, three-year deal with the Sooners in February 2025 -- though the two parties reached agreement in December 2024. Arbuckle's deal averaged $1.5 million per year, per terms reviewed by USA TODAY Sports. Per contract terms, Oklahoma is obligated to pay Arbuckle $125,000 per month through the contract's duration.
Since Arbuckle's contract runs for 15 more months through January 2028, he is owed $1.875 million by Oklahoma, but that figure is decreased by the amount of his new salary if Arbuckle finds another job.
A former West Texas A&M quarterback who first rose to notoriety as Tyson Helton's offensive coordinator at Western Kentucky in 2022, Arbuckle landed on Jake Dickert's Washington State staff a year later, spent two seasons helming the Cougars offense and then made the leap to the SEC.
The initial returns were solid; Oklahoma earned an at-large bid in the 2025 College Football Playoff -- though it lost at home to Alabama in the opening round.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Oklahoma fires offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle as scoring woes continue
