After a very rocky performance against the Tennessee Volunteers on Saturday night, it appears the Oklahoma Sooners are shaking things up on offense in a big way ahead of their game at Auburn on Saturday.
On Monday night, Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables announced that he’s making a quarterback change from Jackson Arnold to Michael Hawkins.
Oklahoma’s offense hadn’t exactly been firing on all cylinders through the season’s first three weeks entering last Saturday with Arnold under center. However, Tennessee’s defense took a sputtering Crimson and Cream machine and completely shut it down until the game was out of reach.
Arnold was simply disastrous for most of three quarters before he was pulled. He finished the game 7/16 for 54 yards with an interception. But beyond the abysmal passing numbers, Arnold did what he couldn’t do: turn the ball over, something he did three total times.
Two of those turnovers – the fumbles – came right after two sack-fumbles by Nico Iamaleava in the first half. Arnold gave it right back twice, the first coming after the ball was ripped away in a pile of players inside the Tennessee 5-yard line. The second came on a poorly thrown backwards pass across the field that was bobbled around afterwards and recovered by the Vols. Tennessee would go on to put in what was essentially the dagger after the fumbled lateral to secure a 19-3 lead at the half.