I wrote these words last Sunday afternoon, and they are every bit as applicable today as they were then...

My postgame column every week is fun. That’s why I do it. It’s fun for me and it’s fun for you. Obviously, I aim to bring legitimate insight and rationality in the column, but the manner in which I write it is intentionally lighthearted.

But none of you are in the mood to have fun right now, and that’s understandable.

And in moments like this, I always hearken back to one particular scene in the great sports movie Moneyball. The scene involves an exchange between Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane (portrayed by Brad Pitt) and one of his players, an outfielder named Jeremy Giambi. Billy walks into the locker room after a loss to see Jeremy dancing on a tabletop to loudly blaring disco music, at which point he — Billy, that is —takes a bat and smashes the stereo. The conversation that ensues is as follows:

Billy: Is losing fun?

Jeremy: *silence*

Billy: IS… LOSING… FUN?

Jeremy: No.

Billy: Then what are you having fun for?

There will be no fun had in this week’s column, not even at the expense of Lincoln Riley’s pitiful ramshackle operation in the land of avocado toast and tech bros. I will cut to the chase, answer your questions, and remain on task and on topic.

I do not feel the need to add anything more to this. So let’s just get straight to the mailbag after Oklahoma choked away the final Bedlam in Big 12 history.

This is a natural place to start, because if there is a scapegoat amongst Sooner Nation right now, it's undoubtedly Jeff Lebby. No one has taken half as much criticism as the Sooners' offensive coordinator with regard to the two consecutive losses. I'm not here to convince you Jeff Lebby shouldn't be fired, nor am I here to convince you that he should be fired. At this point, you have formed an opinion, and one way or another, I am not going to talk you out of it. But regardless, I would encourage you to approach this discourse with a healthy dose of perspective.

Lebby's offense is prolific, and Oklahoma is within college football's upper echelon in most every offensive category. The Sooners had 492 yards of total offense on Saturday, and Lebby can hardly be held responsible for the three turnovers that his unit committed. Until the final five minutes of the football game, the Sooners' embattled playcaller orchestrated a pretty impressive performance on the offensive side. But for the second straight week, the wheels fell off the wagon down the stretch, and Lebby made several inexplicable decisions — most conspicuously the decision to draw up a play that didn't get the Sooners to the sticks on their do-or-die fourth-down conversion attempt. Prolific, high-octane offense only gets you so far. There are occasions when situational football makes all the difference, and on two consecutive weekends, Lebby flopped in that department.

Here is the exhortation I would give to every Oklahoma fan that has seen enough of Lebby and wants a change made: be careful what you wish for. The equation is never as simple as it looks. If you think it's as straightforward as "Replace Offensive Coordinator, Offense Get Better," you're looking at things very myopically. Yes, Lebby has left much to be desired in the way he's handled crucial late-game situations. But there is no guarantee that any hypothetical Lebby replacement could execute a gameplan that's good enough to get to those situations in the first place. Moreover, overhauling an offense isn't as simple as just replacing the playcaller. When you replace the playcaller, you have to install a new scheme. Players have to learn a new playbook. Language, rhythm and personnel groupings have to evolve. You have to recruit to the new philosophy, which is a hell of a lot harder than it might appear. Just ask the Wisconsin Badgers, who thought that rejuvenating an obsolete Big Ten West offense was as simple as implementing the Air Raid. To that end, they brought in new OC Phil Longo this offseason. The scheme is there. The personnel, on the other hand? Not so much. The Badgers are 5-4, and have scored more than 25 points in conference play just once. So again, re-tooling the offense from the top down might be a great concept in theory, but it's much more difficult to put into practice. And we have yet to see the Sooners' offense stymied in 2023, which underscores the reality that the issues are situational and not systemic. You are not upset because Oklahoma sucks on offense. You are upset because situational football has been an Achilles' heel. You are not wrong to be upset, but you ought at least to be willing to acknowledge situational shortcomings are much more easily fixed than an offense with glaring holes and inefficiencies.

None of this is intended to absolve Lebby of blame in the Sooners' last two losses. He is as culpable as anyone, and the criticism is warranted. And if you want him replaced, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that you're wrong. But if you're calling for his head, what I will ask you to do is have a tangible idea of who you'd like to see as his replacement. Present a solution to the problem that you perceive. And when you've decided upon a name (or group of names) that fits the bill as Oklahoma's next OC, I will then ask you if you're willing to watch the Sooners' offense evolve in real time. Think carefully about your answer to that question, because the real-time evolution of an offense can be rocky and even painful. Miami, Notre Dame, the aforementioned Badgers and even Alabama can attest to this.

I'm at a loss, JJ. I'm truly at a loss. Not calling a timeout in that situation is indefensible. Throwing short of the sticks is even more indefensible. Throwing short of the sticks while rolling your quarterback to the short side of the field is asinine.

Am I being hyperbolic if I call it the most egregious PI no-call I've seen, at least among no-calls that actually had an impact on the outcome of a game? Brent Venables tried so hard not to get fined in his postgame presser, simply saying, "I thought that was what pass interference was." For my part, I thought the no-call on Trevon West back in the 2021 Bedlam matchup was absurd. This one verged on validation of conspiracy theories. A human referee, who is paid money to officiate football games, watched Drake Stoops get tackled while the ball was in midair. That human referee, an honest-to-goodness person (with two functional eyeballs, no less), did nothing but render an incomplete signal. Did that no-call decide the game? No, it did not. Do Oklahoma's chances of winning that game increase dramatically if that foul is adjudicated in the correct fashion? Yes, they do. I had several folks in and around the program text me after the game ended, with some variation of "I can't wait to get the f*** out of this conference" constituting each of those messages.

Yeah, I'm done. I've tried to be nice. I've tried to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. This is the end of that effort. Zach Schmit needs to be replaced. Admittedly, a 51-yarder is not the easiest kick known to mankind, but there were zero Sooner fans that had any confidence Schmit would connect on that attempt yesterday. When it's become surprising to see a kicker make a kick, there needs to be change. At minimum, there needs to be a competition in practice throughout the week. Schmit has now misfired at least once across each of the last four games in which he's been asked to attempt a field goal. This can't continue, and Liam Evans cannot get to campus fast enough.

If your honest reaction to two straight RANKED losses after a 7-0 start is to advocate for Brent Venables' firing, I simply cannot talk reason into you. You are not thinking or speaking rationally. And no, I do not expect Jackson Arnold to finish the year as the starter. This is still Dillon Gabriel's team and he has done nothing to jeopardize his status as the starting quarterback. In 2023, Oklahoma is a good team and not a championship team. This is not cause to move on from Brent Venables. My preseason prediction was that the Sooners would finish 10-2, and granted, the victory over Texas re-shaped expectations for many fans and writers alike. But if the Sooners do indeed finish the regular season 10-2, that's not a failure. That's precisely commensurate with preseason prognostications for this football team. And especially if Oklahoma State and Kansas remain ranked, no one ought to be disheartened at all by the Sooners' end-of-season record if it's in the 9-3 or 10-2 neighborhood. That's a dang good year of football. Now, will it be somewhat marred by the perpetual questions of what could have been? Undoubtedly, and that'll always be a tough pill to swallow. It'll go in the same bin as seasons like 2006 and 2009 and 2021. A playoff berth was there for the taking this year, and the Sooners squandered their shot.

Okay. I get that we're on a message board and these kinds of comments are ubiquitous. But are we serious here?

Iowa is an offensive dumpster fire. BYU is an offensive dumpster fire. Nebraska is an offensive dumpster fire. If you think this Oklahoma offense is a dumpster fire, you've completely lost context. I will reiterate a statistic I cited earlier in this mailbag: the Sooners had 492 yards of offense yesterday. They don't struggle to move the ball and they don't struggle to put up points. If you're a quarterback, I'd say you are encouraged by what Oklahoma has accomplished with Dillon Gabriel at the helm. I've said it a thousand times: Gabriel is an excellent field general, but he has some very obvious limitations that give him a hard ceiling as a quarterback. And for a minute, he was a Heisman contender within the confines of this offense. If you're a running back, you're looking at this backfield and chomping at the bit with the knowledge that that a walk-on is the Sooners' most productive cog. If you're a wideout, you've no doubt taken note of Nic Anderson's emergence as arguably the conference's best receiver. And if you're a tight end, how the hell can you not see a pretty immediate opportunity to be a difference-maker in this offense? The sky isn't falling on the recruiting trail. If losses affected recruits' collective perception of an offense that heavily, Bryant Wesco would have flipped from Clemson long ago.

We will entertain this discussion if and when Jeff Lebby is no longer the offensive coordinator at the University of Oklahoma. But until that point, a Hypothetical Hot Board is disingenuous and bizarre.

Yeah, look. The injuries aren't helping. And injuries aren't really something you can trace to a root cause. They're part of the unpredictable nature of the game of football, which is an inherently violent sport. The Sooners were down their top defender in Danny Stutsman yesterday, and had several other key players limited due to injury (Gentry Williams, Peyton Bowen, Tawee Walker, etc.). Do the Sooners win yesterday if Stutsman and/or any of the other aforementioned contributors are available and uninhibited? Perhaps. But injuries will happen over the course of a season, and they can't be allowed to derail a team. I'm unwilling to make injuries an excuse for Oklahoma, because they've had chances to win in each of the last two games regardless.

I'm befuddled by Austin Stogner's snap count. If he's going to be on the field, he needs to be running routes and catching passes. If all he's on the field to do is run block, the Sooners might as well put Jacob Sexton out there as a sixth offensive lineman. Stogner has ten catches this season for a whopping total of 91 yards. Look, I was wrong about him, and I'll own up to it. I said before the season that I expected Stogner to be more productive than Brayden Willis was last year. Instead, he's been a total nonfactor in the passing game. Throw him the ball or allocate his snaps elsewhere. It's that simple at this point.

I have not a clue, Chuck. Jayden Gibson played one (1) snap yesterday. A singular snap. Personnel decisions across the board have been head-scratching at times, but continually electing NOT to deploy your most athletic playmakers in the receiving corps might just take the cake.

One thing we are not going to do in this column is stand for any Drake Stoops slander. Drake Stoops played the game of his life yesterday. He caught 12 passes for 134 yards and a touchdown, and it seemed that every time the Sooners needed to move the chains through the air, Gabriel was looking first for his trusty slot receiver. Sure, be angry at Lebby. That anger is justified. But don't diminish what Stoops accomplished yesterday, and don't try to minimize what he is as a player.

If there are any liquor brands and/or stores that are looking for new and innovative ways to advertise, I'm always available via DM. If the next three weeks are anything like the last three weeks, alcohol sales across the state of Oklahoma are going to boom.

That's the spirit! A glass-half-full type of human being if I've ever seen one. All aboard the Gasso Express.

Because if you watch the replay, especially the overhead angle, it's clear that Stoops was out of bounds when he caught the ball. But he did catch the ball, a remarkable feat in and of itself given how much contact occurred.

I have gotten to know Jason Llewellyn quite well. He's a good kid, and is a high-character individual in general. He made a really shortsighted decision yesterday in publicly letting his emotions off the leash. He's obviously got his frustrations about not being part of the travel squad, and he's taken to social media during each of the last two games as an outlet for those frustrations. But even though he has since wiped many of the tweets, retweets and likes that collectively outlined his frustration, the damage is already done. I don't think he'll be processed, but I think it's unlikely that he is back in crimson and cream come 2024. He's clearly become disenchanted, and I imagine that he'll be held internally accountable for his social media activity this week, which probably won't help repair any bridges.

I don't get it either, Catfish. Farooq's only big return of his career culminated in a fumble (as many will recall, that happened on the opening kick against Tulsa back in September). LV Bunkley-Shelton doesn't offer much additional explosiveness in the return game, and he almost fumbled away a punt return yesterday as well. Farooq and LVBS really aren't doing much for Oklahoma in the way of special teams returns at the moment. Conversely, Gavin Freeman has done exactly what a good punt returner should do, which is 1) catch everything, and 2) get a few yards upfield when he's got the requisite space. Freeman is undeniably a dynamic athlete, but he's also surehanded, and I believe the latter quality — not the former — is of utmost importance when it comes to punt return. But with regard to kick return, I fail to see any downside to using your fastest and most elusive athletes. Put Brenen Thompson back deep. Put Peyton Bowen back deep. Put Gavin Sawchuk back deep. Put anybody, ANYBODY, with breakaway ability back deep.

If I had an explanation, I'd give it to you. I can tell you what Jeff Lebby said about the final snap, though. Maybe it doesn't answer ALL of the questions bouncing around in your head, but after a day like yesterday, what would? Here's Lebby on his last play call:

"No, we did, we liked it. Thought it was going to be man to man. Needed to be about a yard deeper. That's the reality of it. I can put us in a better situation."

Well, in that time span, you've gotten to witness a couple dozen conference titles, two national championships and four Heisman Trophy winners. In short, very few fanbases across the rest of college football pity your plight. Oklahoma football wins a lot. Winning is the expectation. Championships are the expectation. As a Sooner fan, a season of agony for you (i.e., 2021 or 2023) would be a season of ecstasy for fans of most other college football programs across the country. I'm not saying you ought to lower your expectations. I suppose what I'm saying is that you still ought to be grateful for what Oklahoma football has given you across those four decades.

Was he? I didn't catch that vibe from Venables. I saw a coach that is doing his best to take responsibility for a loss that ultimately falls on others' shoulders more than his own. That's what a head coach ought to do. He didn't hang anybody out to dry or call anybody out; he took the questions in stride and stood behind his guys. Heck, scarce more than two years ago, I watched Alex Grinch throw Shane Whitter under the bus out of nowhere in a postgame press conference. Leadership amongst the coaches that wear the interlocking O and U has come a long way.

I'm all in favor of letting the pups off the leash if there is no viable alternative, and let me tell you where there is no viable alternative right now: cornerback. If Gentry Williams misses any time, Jasiah Wagoner and/or Makari Vickers should start in place of Kani Walker, who has been mediocre at best and horrible at worst in relief of Williams. And to riff off your question a bit, I do want to give props to Robert Spears-Jennings and Kip Lewis in particular. Cayden Green got his flowers after the Texas game and he's been steady ever since, but for the first time all year, we saw a ton of RSJ and Lewis yesterday. Both of them delivered monumental performances, as Lewis racked up 15 tackles and Spears-Jennings tallied seven of his own. The duo combined to blow up a fourth-and-short in the third quarter that gave the Sooners an opportunity to stretch the lead to two scores, but we all know how that ended. There's a lot to critique and a lot to bemoan in the aftermath of that football game, but let us not neglect to give praise where praise is due. Spears-Jennings and Lewis were spectacular in the losing effort.

I can't give you a definitive answer as to whether Jackson Arnold would theoretically follow Jeff Lebby to another school. All I can tell you is that 1) Lebby was instrumental in Arnold's decision to choose Oklahoma, and 2) Arnold's bond with the Oklahoma football program does not start and stop with Jeff Lebby.

Oh joy! What a refreshing change of pace.

1) What in blue blazes DOES pass interference look like?

2) Why was there no timeout to set up the fourth-and-5? (Venables: "I liked the play")

3) Why throw short of the sticks on a gotta-have-it fourth down attempt?

4) Why are JJ Hester and Daylan Smothers playing meaningful snaps for the first time all season... in the second half of a must-win game?

5) Why didn't Tawee Walker see a carry until the third quarter? If he was healthy enough to play, why hold him out that long?

6) Given his obvious and jarring regression, how can you justify playing Jaren Kanak over Kip Lewis and/or Kobie McKinzie at this point?

7) Did Redi Mustafaraj and Gavin Marshall give each other gout?

I feel like I could go on for a while. But it's time to close this column on a decidedly dissonant note.

In this new addition to the column, Parker’s father, a known OU football doomer and Uncle Rico-esque former high school quarterback, speaks via in-game text messages on behalf of the fans who tend towards a nonconformist perspective on the Sooners.

The fix is in: The PI non-call on Stoops was one of the worst non-calls I’ve ever seen... It was so bad that it makes me suspect the refs are betting on the game... It was the most obvious PI penalty I’ve ever seen

And yet: It shouldn’t have come down to that for us to win the game... Nic Anderson dropped the best DG long ball we’ve seen yet… right through his hands... Clearly Jeff Lebby is back to his stupid ridiculous play calls... He has no ability to put a game away... Lebby again took his foot off the gas and called stupid conservative plays when we needed to put points on the board and put the game out of reach... The “flood left” play call on the final 4th down was a bad play call... but Stoops also ran a terrible route... You HAVE to get to the sticks in that situation... We had good opportunities to make good plays... And we failed to make them

The tailspin continues: I predict OU will lose 1 or 2 of their next 3 games as well... They SHOULD win all 3… but right now I don’t believe they will... They have shown an inability to win in key moments and to pull away from opponents... I think every game for the rest of the season will be close in score and I think OU will lose at least one of them... Sadly we will end our tenure in the Big 12 neither winning Bedlam NOR playing for the conference championship