Oklahoma Sooners vs. Illinois State

 Welcome to the 2025 edition of Sooner football! Hope runs high. Dreams inevitably shatter. But not today. Today, the new look Sooners take on the Redbirds of Illinois State. It's the debut of the new look Ben Arbuckle offense led by John Mateer.

The Sooner defense will have to overcome some big losses in Danny Stutsman and Billy Bowman. But expectations have folks believing this defense could take a step forward.

There's nowhere to go but up from last year, so let's get right to it.

OFFENSE

The Sooners trotted out a historically bad offense last year led by the hapless Seth Littrel. This year, the Sooners have what they hope is their next version of their quarterback whisperer in Ben Arbuckle and, they hope, the second coming of Baker Mayfield.

Expectations be damned, if they can just even be competent and healthy the Sooners could win at least two more games than they did last year.

Mateer is not expected to carry the whole load. Jaydn Ott is a highly touted transfer running back. The Sooners go deep at running back with Javontae Barnes, Taylor Tatum and Xavier Robinson. 

The offensive line is also healthy so far, with some big time freshman potentially ready to step in and step up right away.

For game 1, we have to go Mateer for OPOG. He knows the offense and showing some poise and command today will be big time setting the stage for next week's real opener, Michigan.

DEFENSE

The Sooners are stacked up front with Jaden Jackson and R. Mason Thomas. Kip Lewis is ready to lead the linebackers and the Bowen brothers, Eli and Payten, head up the secondary.

I expect some hungry looking players on this side of the ball and they should be feeding off the heady vibes the offense is putting out.

I'm going to go Kendall Dolby for my DPOG as my "Out of left field" pick of the day.

THE SCORE

The Sooners are fired up in this one and the offense gets rolling early. Illinois State gets their check and hits the road.

SOONERS 63, Redbirds 7

Boomer to the motherfuckin Sooner

Illinois State

 Welcome back faithful reader(s). We are once again at that wonderful time of year where Sooners football is here and we can still be (falsely) filled with hope. This season brings a lot of changes on both sides of the ball, most notably the coming of transfer QB John Mateer and his OC from Washington state where the two did great things last season. If you watched any of the Sooners last season then you know QB was mostly a wasteland. Hopefully this will be a massive upgrade, anything would be an upgrade over that wet dog shit we called an offense last year. A lot of questions remain on the OL (never a good thing), but if young guys can step up, the offense might be, dare I say, a strength. The skill positions have some newcomers mixed in with some solid holdovers. WR should be a strength, but Deion burks has to stay healthy I think to really anchor that group. RB sees the addition of Jaydn Ott to join Javontae Barns and company in the backfield. Maybe most interesting is the move of Jared Kanak from LB to TE where he looks to be the top guy at this point (says a lot about the lack of recruiting at that spot). He’s a beast but it’s a big change, his blocking will likely determine how much success he can have. 

Defensively, the loss of Stutsman to the draft leaves a large hole on the LB groups and an even larger hole in my puff pieces, and the biggest hole of all in my heart (well 2 out of 3, I didn't love him that much). I’ll be forced to devote some thought to my DPGs again (not my strong suit). Dline should be a strength with R Mason Thomas anchoring that group; and the return of David Stone after being in the transfer portal for about 45 minutes is big as well. The DBs will have quite a few changes but Peyton Bowen was an all-world recruit at S and he has shown flashes to this point, our Sooners really need him to step up and fill Billy Bowman's neckerchief. CB is a question mark with mostly unproven guys there. I'm hoping that the strengths at the other levels will hide this area a bit.

The schedule is pretty brutal as usual, with an added bonus of Michigan as a non-conference game. Apart from a few early season games, every week will be a test. In short, it’s a real butt-fister of a schedule. Illinois state is up first, let’s get our feet wet, iron out some kinks and tune up for Michigan week 2. 

Offense

All eyes will (rightfully) be on Mateer and the offense in general. I’m hoping they can come out a little vanilla and maybe set the cruise control early. With that in mind I don’t think Mateer "blows up" this week, I like Jaydn Ott to come in and have a nice game running and catching the ball out of the backfield. He’s my OPG. 

Defense

I’m weirdly optimistic that the defense might be respectable. They’ve actually improved under Venables and there are a few returning guys that are studs. The Dline looks tough and really all levels have playmakers. But for today I’m going with Kip Lewis. That dude is awesome and his athleticism is crazy. 

Score

I really don’t know much of anything about Illinois state. I suspect they have some solid athletes on their roster and no doubt they’re playing with nothing to lose. But top to bottom OU is just more talented. Of course, this doesn’t always mean in a win but I think the Sooners come out and TCB in this one, 44-10. It's good to be back.

Boomer to the Motherfuckin’ Sooner