Oklahoma-Temple Preview: Three Keys to the Game — Starting Five, Value the ‘Hide, Let it Ride

NORMAN — No. 18-ranked Oklahoma opens the 2024 season — Team 130, history and Brent Venables remind us — on Friday against Temple, and it’s a big one.

Not necessarily the game itself. OU is a 43-point favorite to beat the Owls in the program’s first-ever Friday night home game.

But the whole season — Venables’ third as head coach since returning to Norman and replacing Lincoln Riley — is beyond huge for the Sooners. It’s gargantuan, titanic and monumental all rolled into one. 

Joining the Southeastern Conference will do that.

SEC play arrives in about 23 days when the Tennessee Volunteers come to Owen Field. Just beyond that lies a trip to the snake pit that is Auburn, AL.

So while the Sooners are sure to roll past Philly’s finest on Friday night, they’ll need to have a sharp eye tuned in to making the kind of continued improvements that will show up when the SEC games get here on Sept. 21.

Here are three keys to the Temple game:

Three of last year’s starting offensive line are currently on NFL rosters. A fourth just got waived. And a fifth is starting for Missouri (who hosts OU in an old Big Eight reunion on Nov. 9). 

It’s not clear if the Sooners have ever had to replace all five starters up front — but that’s exactly what Venables and o-line coach Bill Bedenbaugh faced this offseason. And no doubt, it was tricky.

Sunday’s two-deep shows that three of the five FBS transfers — left tackle Michael Tarquin, center Branson Hickman and right guard Febechi Nwaiwu — have earned starting jobs heading into week one. Two more transfers — right guard Geirean Hatchett and right tackle Spencer Brown — are listed as backups.

The other two starting jobs, per the two-deep, belong to junior left guard Jacob Sexton and third-year sophomore right tackle Jake Taylor.

That’s all pending everyone’s good health come Friday, of course.

Gone from last season are left tackle Walter Rouse, left guard Cayden Green, center Andrew Raym, right guard McKade Mettauer and right tackle Tyler Guyton. Rouse, Raym and Guyton all made NFL rosters this week, Mettauer was released Tuesday and Green is now a starter at Mizzou.

Two redshirt freshmen who got virtually no playing time last season — left tackle Logan Howland and left guard Heath Ozaeta — are top backups at their respective positions.

Four true freshmen — left guard Eddy Pierre-Louis, center Josh Aisosa, right guard Eugene Brooks and right tackle Spencer Autry-Dent — are listed third at their respective positions.

Bedenbaugh has recruited a lot of talent from the high school ranks (four 4-stars and four 3-stars in the last two classes), and he’s also landed a lot of experience from the NCAA Transfer Portal (97 career starts, 164 career games among this year’s five newcomers). 

Developing chemistry has been the priority since way back in spring practice, but many times that can only happen in games. 

If quarterback Jackson Arnold and his wildly talented receivers and running backs are going to stay clean and move the football effectively this season, it has to start Friday with the five new faces up front.

Oklahoma’s offensive roster is scattered with young, talented players who will no doubt be eager to impress their coaches and a hungry fan base.

Start with Jackson Arnold, the 5-star quarterback who played only a handful of games as a true freshman last season and didn’t look particularly conscientious about ball security in his one start — a four-turnover performance and double-digit loss to Arizona in the Alamo Bowl.

The top returning wide receiver, Jalil Farooq, lost two fumbles in that game as well, including a costly fourth-quarter giveaway.

After a strong true freshman season in 2022, running back Jovantae Barnes labored through most of last year with a foot injury and will be eager to make something special happen now that he’s fully healthy again. And behind him are FCS transfer Sam Franklin, true freshman Taylor Tatum and redshirt freshman Kalib Hicks — all of whom might just go into the game feeling like they have something to prove. That can often lead to being loose with the football.

If Arnold simply plays within the structure of the offense, follows the game plan and takes what the defense gives him — including any deep shots that may come open — then he can be turnover-free. And if the running backs and receivers adhere to their fundamentals and simply trust their blocks, there shouldn’t be any issues.

The defense is supposedly the strength of this team. At Oklahoma, that’s really saying something.

The Sooners have some impressive tools to use throughout every level of the defense. The edge rushers are talented and deep. The interior linemen are stout and come with talent, experience and youth. The linebackers are probably the heart and soul of the defense. The secondary is loaded with athleticism and savvy.

Venables’ only shutout in his first two seasons was a 73-0 route of Arkansas State in last year’s opener. Four games in, OU had given up just 28 points and was among the national leaders. But things went mostly downhill from there as th Sooners allowed 23.5 points per game.

Linebacker Danny Stutsman’s health is paramount. So is safety Billy Bowman’s. So getting a big lead early and getting them to the sideline quickly might be a sound strategy. At most other positions, the Sooners are actually deep enough to withstand a few minor injuries if it should come to that.

Most everyone agrees that Venables has done a great job restoring talent and depth to the OU defense. Posting another shutout and putting forth a wire-to-wire domination of Temple would go a long way toward furthering that narrative and serving notice to the rest of their new conference that the Sooners are indeed SEC-ready.