Berry Tramel
Tulsa World Sports Columnist
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The daze had yet to wear off on the Mike Gundy news last week when speculation shifted to Gundy’s replacement. Which included Ben Arbuckle.
OU’s whippersnapper of an offensive coordinator is two weeks into his 30s and just a third of the way through his first Sooner season, but OSU’s obvious need of an offensive makeover made Arbuckle an immediate candidate in some minds.
In previous eras, such a Bedlam transfer wasn’t likely. Sure, football’s Cliff Speegle was an OU graduate, and basketball’s Doyle Parrack was an OSU grad, and both crossed the Bedlam River to be head coaches. But the rivalry and American culture turned a little less gentle, and the in-state aisle was no place to shop for a coach.
Now, of course, Bedlam football is in hibernation, the series seems unlikely to awaken anytime soon and OSU people might not be outraged if their school hired a Sooner.
But it still won’t happen, at least it shouldn’t happen, for the very best of reasons. Arbuckle is not qualified for the job.
Don’t take that as an indictment of Arbuckle’s generic qualifications. He appears to be an excellent coach with a winning personality. Line coach Bill Bedenbaugh likened Arbuckle to Lincoln Riley, a flattering comparison to which I second. Arbuckle reminds me mucho of Riley. Even down to his voice, as we’ve pointed out repeatedly.
But Arbuckle is not a good fit for the Cowboys. Sure, OSU’s offense needs more than a tuneup. It needs a total overhaul, the kind that Dana Holgorsen instilled in 2010, his lone season as Gundy’s coordinator, or Larry Fedora brought in 2005, when the Cowboys joined the 20th century with uptempo, no-huddle and spread ingredients. Arbuckle could make that kind of impact, I have little doubt.
However, OSU is not an offense short of getting back in Bullet’s saddle. The entire Cowboy program has crumbled. The demise came quickly. OSU was ranked 14th in America just 53 weeks ago. Since then, OSU is 1-12, with the only victory over Tennessee-Martin. The roster is limp. Excitement is nil. Gundy is gone.
The stability and culture, for which OSU was known the latter half of Gundy’s 21 seasons, will have to be rebuilt. A new foundation is required. In insurance parlance, Cowboy football has been totaled.
OSU needs a football coach who can build a team for the short-term and a program for the long-term. The Cowboys need a coach who can bring in a bunch of good ballplayers immediately, coach up those lads and get the excitement back.
Could Arbuckle do that? I don’t see how. This is the job for an established head coach with lots of contacts, or an assistant coach who has been around the block and learned from a head coach how to build a program in the modern age of rampant transfers and paying players.
I’m sure Arbuckle has been paying attention and taking notes, but he’s been with Brent Venables for 10 months, with Jake Dickert for two years at Washington State and with Tyson Helton at Western Kentucky for two years. That’s not exactly Venables’ triumvirate of Bill Snyder, Bob Stoops and Dabo Swinney.
OSU needs its own Curt Cignetti, the Indiana wunderkind who came up hardscrabble (head coach at Indiana of Pennsylvania, Elon and James Madison, with a record of 119-35. Now Cignetti is winning big at Indiana (16-2 with the historically woebegone Hoosiers).
If not a war horse like the 64-year-old Cignetti or Texas-San Antonio’s Jeff Trayor, 57, then a young gun like North Texas’ Eric Morris or Texas State’s G.J. Kinne. A coach who has distributed the energy and know-how to navigate the transfer portal in this new age.
Again, no knock on Arbuckle. I think he’s a fascinating offensive coordinator and some day very well could be a quality head coach. Heck, for all I know, he’ll be OU’s next head coach, in keeping with the Riley comparison.
Arbuckle probably could become a head coach soon and do well, especially if the program pieces are in place, as they were for Riley at age 33, Barry Switzer at age 35 and Bud Wilkinson at age 30. In some ways, young head coaches are better positioned than ever before to succeed at well-resourced programs, since the infrastructure is in place in scouting, contract negotiating, conditioning, etc.
But at a place that’s starting over, like OSU, a novice coach seems like a terrible idea.
“I don’t know if it’s easier to be a head coach at a young age or if ADs are more willing to hire,” Venables said. “I don’t know what the test of time really says of that. What the story is.”
But Arbuckle “will certainly be somebody that has great opportunity in the future. Our building’s full of guys that are going to be great future head coaches. But Ben’ll have a lot of opportunity. He’s a winner. Everything I’ve bragged on him in the past, he’s got maturity beyond his years, he’s got a great toughness to him, he’s very relational, he’s passionate about winning.”
Arbuckle on Tuesday didn’t bite on my head-coaching question.
“I mean I’m flattered that someone would say that about me, but none of that stuff registers in my head at all,” he said. “I have a responsibility to this university and to these kids, so I haven’t even thought about if I would be ready to be a head coach. I’m not seeking anything, either.
“My responsibility is to Oklahoma, to these kids, putting them in the best position to be successful every single day. So, that’s where my loyalty lies, and that’s where my mind is set, right here at Oklahoma.”
Arbuckle almost surely will be a head coach some day and likely will be a good one. But he’s 30 years old, and OSU needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. That’s no job for Arbuckle.
berry.tramel@tulsaworld.com
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Berry Tramel
Tulsa World Sports Columnist
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