Oklahoma's latest Heisman hopeful quarterback is officially gone to Cali, and the Sooners' future has not looked this bad since Barry Switzer was fired.
The prevailing thought around Norman, and to some college football people who know, is one of the primary reasons why coach Lincoln Riley left Oklahoma for USC is he believes the Sooners cannot win SEC titles.
Oklahoma and Texas are not scheduled to leave the Big 12 for the SEC until 2025, but preparations are being made and none of them are encouraging.
Oklahoma to-the-SEC has the makings of Nebraska to-the-Big 10. You remember the team formerly known as the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
Since leaving the Big 12 for the Big 10 in 2011, the Huskers have had three head coaches, and one season with 10 wins; the Cornhuskers are the college football equivalent of the retiree who wears his high school letter jacket to try to pick up girls.
On Tuesday morning, Oklahoma freshman quarterback Caleb Williams made it official by transferring from Oklahoma to USC.
Players go for the coach, not the school.
Riley landing Williams immediately makes USC a favorite to win the weakest of the Power 5 conferences.
Because it's Oklahoma in the Big 12, it will be fine for the next season or two, but a Sooners' Slide is coming.
Their top two quarterbacks from last season, Williams and Spencer Rattler, have transferred.
They lost Lincoln to L.A., and replaced him with a longtime assistant who has never been a head coach before on any level, and his task is to have the Sooners SEC ready.
The job Brent Venables accepted as the Sooners' head coach is not the one he was familiar with when he was an assistant there from 1999 to 2011.
No assistant coach in college football has been more sought after than Venables, who kept waiting for the right job before he left his comfy role as a defensive coordinator at Clemson.
Oklahoma in the Big 12 is the right job. Oklahoma in the SEC is not.
Riley had one of the best jobs in college football; a place where he could win 10-plus games every season, roll in the Big 12, and reach the College Football Playoff.
In the SEC, the Sooners will be one of a dozen programs willing to throw their own mothers out of an airplane for their next win.
The Sooners won't be Missouri in the SEC, but they will lose.
Oklahoma wanted that SEC money, and Riley didn't want to be in a job where he could get fired.
By going to USC, Riley assured himself of retaining a top salary in a conference that is much closer to the Big 12 than the SEC.
He can do at USC what he did at Oklahoma.
The Pac-12 features maybe three schools that want to spend the type of stupid money necessary to obtain the most important thing in higher education: winning a football game.
Oklahoma, which has won 14 Big 12 titles, is simply due to dip.
Starting with Bob Stoops' second season in Norman in 2000, the Sooners have won at least 10 games in 17 out of 21 years. But these things don't go on forever.
The concern for Oklahoma is if this inevitable slide will look like the transition from Bud Wilkinson to Chuck Fairbanks/Barry Switzer, or Switzer to Stoops.
After the 1963 season, Wilkinson stepped down in Norman and was replaced by Gomer Jones, who lasted two years. He was replaced by Jim MacKenzie, who lasted one year.
Fairbanks arrived in 1967, and between his six-year tenure and Switzer's 16 seasons the Sooners were one of the best teams in college football.
Because of NCAA violations, and other "things," Switzer was pushed out after the 1988 season and replaced by the nicest, cleanest, coach in the universe: Gary Gibbs.
Gibbs lasted six years before he was replaced in 1995 by Howard Schnellenberger, who made it one year.
Schnellenberger was replaced by John Blake, who did not have a winning record in any of his three years, 1996 to '98.
Then came The Stooper.
Then came the wins.
Then the Lincoln.
Now here comes the SEC.
Lincoln wanted no part of that SEC smoke, so he hit the beach and now has his top quarterback, too.
Lincoln didn't think Oklahoma could be Oklahoma in the SEC, and he didn't want to risk being a part of the Sooners turning into the Cornhuskers.
