Question for Texas And Oklahoma fans

Good deal. I can’t remember when Horns dominated defensively. Always thought horns had good offensive teams.

Hard to really know much but 3rd year for Venables with solid recruiting classes.

All new OL, if they can hold up while Jackson gets his footing then our offense will be really good. If not, could be a rough start to the season. I hear good things but I’m a skeptic by nature so I need to see it.

Defensively I feel better than I have since 2009. A really good secondary, quality depth at LB and we finally have a good rotation of DTs.

But I need to see how they do against competition to see where we’re at. A lot of question marks on offense and I am hesitant to think the D will hold up all year without a top notch offense.

I have always been a Sooner fan. Again like Texas I don’t think Sooners defense is SEC caliber. Will be Sooner fan unless playing LSU. Welcome to SEC. May be rough first few years , SEC is different animal in football.Good luck!

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Again like Texas I don’t think Sooners defense is SEC caliber.

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SEC defenses weren’t SEC caliber last year.

I've been following Longhorn football since I was old enough to somewhat know what I was watching, (early 90's) and this years team may be the deepest across the board when it comes to talent. Not even Mack Brown's early 2k's team had this type of quality past the starting 22...and my dad who started following Longhorn football in the 70's agrees.

That said it remains to be seen if Sark can put it all together and make it mean something.

The strength of our team is obviously offense. Beyond having a 3rd year QB who had the second highest rating ever coming out of HS, (based on whatever sports journos use to measure such things) we have the deepest WR room we've ever had, and Blue chip RB's go at least 3 if not 4 deep as well. Our offensive line was pretty good last year yet only lost a tackle to the draft so basically all returning. Tight end (in spite of losing a stud to the NFL) is certainly deeper this year with 4 guys that are legit starter quality.

As for defense, in spite of losing our 2 stud DT's and a 3 year linebacker to the NFL may be even more talented across the board when new transfers are taken into account. Anthony Hill returns at Linebacker, got a couple younger Lb's that got some playing time last year and should be good to go...and I think we'll finally have a potent pass rush off the edge this coming season. The defensive backfield (our weakness in '23) should be vastly improved on paper with Andrew Mukuba (Clemson) joining us at safety, Malik Muhammed returning at corner, a senior Jahdae Barron who can play every position, and some really talented younger guys that should be ready to compete for playing time elsewhere in the secondary.

I think we finally have the horses to run with anyone in the country, but like I said, won't truly know until the pads start slapping.

SEC is very competitive.Other team fans see Bama, LSU and Georgia in SEC championship game yearly. But in SEC it’s a battle week in and week out. Special teams are sometimes the difference.

Offense: unknown. Lots of talent, but lots of inexperience. If we can protect the QB this will be a 10+ win team. If not, it could be a 7-5 kind of year.
- OL: lots of experience, but most are new to OU via portal. If they gel quickly, they should be OK. If they don’t the season will be very rough. Depth is an issue.
- QB: 5-star prospect, not a ton of experience. Made great throws in the bowl game, but several were to the other team. Big guy, good runner, could be dangerous if the Oline plays well.
- WR: strength of the offense. Big, tall receivers with good speed and good hands. Will make our QB look better than he is.
- RB: serviceable but average. #1 RB out of HS signed last year, not sure if he will factor in or not.

Defense: could be our best defense in 10+ years. Stoops let the defensive talent fall, and Lincoln Riley completely ignored it. Venables had made defensive recruiting a priority and it’s starting to show.
Dline: best talent in years, but all young. They’ll make highlight plays, and probably some dumb ones as well. Will probably struggle with seasoned Olines.
LB: strength. Pre-season All-American starter, and the other two starters are not far behind. Lots of senior experience.
DB: strength. Pre-season All-American starting safety, and our CB’s are deep and experienced.

Special teams: weakness. Kicking, punting, punt returns and kick returns sucked miserably the last couple years. No reason to expect anything different this year.

Coaching: weakness. Venables is an elite recruiter, but the on-the-field results are lacking. Lots of rookie mistakes. Jeff Lebby ran a non-stop hurry-up offense that was not a good fit for a miserable defense. Seth Littrell runs a slower-style offense which should help cut down on the number of plays faced. If our defense has a weakness, it could be in the playcalling. First-year DC is young and inexperienced. Really don’t know what to expect formation- and rotation-wise. I expect him to be aggressive with the defensive talent.

That sounds remarkably like Missouri except our WRs have all been there a while, didn't lose any after last year.

But even down to the issues on defense. We are a little thin at experience at DT and we lost a lot of secondary to the NFL. We have a new DC and safeties coach not failure coaches is the only difference there.

I think you're going to be surprised how tough the SEC is. It's not like Texas doesn't have everything they need to flourish but I think in 20 years we're definitely gonna hear about some teams that really lost out in CFB realignment because they couldn't stand out as a big dog amongst puppies anymore.

Nebraska is the first official victim of that particular syndrome.