Well, that’s finally over.

I’ll be honest, folks… after 2022, I genuinely didn’t think I’d have to cover a 6-7 football program again for a long, long time. Even though the Sooners scuffled through Year 1 under Brent Venables and concluded that campaign with a Cheez-It Bowl loss to Florida State, there was so much reason to believe better days were ahead.

The Sooners had another year of Dillon Gabriel on tap. They had 100 percent staff retention amongst permanent coaches; the only change was Emmett Jones taking the place of interim wide receivers coach L’Damian Washington. They had an outstanding recruiting class headlined by three five-star prospects. They faced a Big 12 schedule that wasn’t necessarily cupcake-laden, but by no means a murderers’ row either. There was more than enough reason to believe that a turnaround was coming, and a turnaround did indeed come. The Sooners won 10 games, and their only two regular-season losses came down to the final possession in road games against top-25 opponents.

So while 6-7 stung in 2022, most everyone perceived it as a necessary ritual cleansing, particularly given that Oklahoma had a first-time head coach and a roster chock full of dead weight.

6-7 feels a lot different in 2024.

That was Year 1, and that was the Big 12. This is Year 3, and this is the Southeastern Conference.

Let’s be completely honest with ourselves here. This time around, there aren’t nearly as many reasons to believe Oklahoma will be better next year.

That’s not to say the Venables era is doomed or the program is dead, nor is it to say that the outcome of next season is already etched into stone. But it is to say that this Oklahoma team — and staff — will have to outperform expectations in 2025 instead of simply meeting them. And thus far, we have not seen a Brent Venables team go above and beyond expectations.

Moreover, Oklahoma played a fantastic football game in their 2022 bowl loss to Florida State. The Sooners went all the way down to the wire with a program that was already picking up major buzz as a future playoff contender. And they did it with a bunch of backups and third-stringers in the lineup.

They did not play a fantastic football game yesterday. They played a football game that featured seven dropped passes, a missed field goal, two failed fourth-down attempts, a 56-yard touchdown nullified due to a penalty, numerous coverage busts, a fumble deep in their own territory, and an inexplicably uninteresting play call on the decisive two-point conversion attempt.

Thus ends what is almost inarguably the most disappointing and bizarre season of the 21st century for the Sooners. And again, the outlook isn’t terribly rosy as the offseason arrives.

We have much to discuss in the days, weeks and months ahead. But for now, let’s head to the mailbag.

Electric_Man405: Is it me or did anyone feel like OU was playing with its food after we went up 14-0?

This is a great prompt with which to start, because I said the EXACT same thing yesterday at halftime during a conversation with a fellow reporter on the sideline. All due respect to Owen Heinecke, but Owen Heinecke is not playing linebacker in the second quarter of an Oklahoma football game unless the Sooners feel it’s well in hand. And it wasn’t well in hand. It was a two-possession game. Offensive playcalling became milquetoast. Sam Franklin dropped two swing passes in a row. Why was Sam Franklin on the field? That is entirely unclear. Oklahoma started playing musical chairs on the offensive line and lost the ability to establish the run. With a chance to stretch the margin to three possessions, the Sooners passed up a chip-shot field goal attempt to try and convert on fourth down (it didn’t work). It was as if Oklahoma completely took its collective foot off the gas after the first quarter ended. You are not alone in this perception, Electric Man.

dskou: How do you find the energy to answer questions about the game after another awful offensive display?

Well, it is my job, after all. We all have days that we don’t want to get up and go to work. But we do it anyway, because we have to put food on the table and keep the bills paid. I love this job, but I don’t do it because I love it. I do it because it keeps the lights on for me and my wife. And so I try to do it well.

SoonerBrethren: How’s business? Serious question! This can’t help with new subs.

Thanks for asking. No one in our line of work is incredibly rich; that’s for sure. But we’re good and we’re grateful for all of you that subscribe. That said, it definitely becomes uncomfortable when you have more budgetary constraints, and nothing creates budgetary constraints quite like mediocrity from the program you cover — unless you cover Arkansas or Nebraska, in which case their fans are fervent enough that they’ll swarm the message boards no matter how inept or irrelevant the football team is. Will that be the case if Oklahoma truly becomes irrelevant? I don’t know. OU hasn’t been irrelevant since the infancy of the Internet. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.