Inside Jackson Arnold's offseason evolution, years-long journey to be OU football's QB1

NORMAN — Eight months ago, Sharon and Todd Arnold anxiously awaited the return of the OU football team inside their San Antonio hotel.

The Sooners' 2023 season was over following a disappointing loss to Arizona in the Alamo Bowl.

And their son, Jackson , had particularly struggled in his first collegiate start at quarterback.

Three interceptions overshadowed the good for a five-star freshman at the game's most important position.

Sharon and Todd wanted to encourage their son. But new OU offensive coordinator Seth Littrell scampered off the bus to them first.

“I just couldn’t help him,” Littrell told a weeping Sharon.

Sharon quickly realized how much Littrell cares.

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“I don't know if (Littrell) felt like he had disappointed us, but by no means had he,” Sharon said. “That was the first glimpse that I could see of him really loving Jackson."

Undeterred, Arnold spent the offseason focused on moving forward.

He had underperformed, tossing nearly half of the picks he accumulated across two seasons as the starter at Denton Guyer (Texas) High School. That was fodder for critics.

But he focused on a message from his parents that how he reacts to the game will define him.

Two hundred and forty-six days later when No. 16 OU opens the season on Friday, Aug. 30, against Temple, he'll aim to show his growth and readiness to lead the Sooners into the SEC.

“I'm so pumped up,” Arnold told The Oklahoman . “I'm so ready to play. I love working out, but I'm tired of it. I'm ready to get into the groove of things.”

As Arnold laces his cleats up in Norman, the man he replaced, Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel , is the betting favorite to win the Heisman Trophy.

The plan was always for Gabriel — who Arnold backed up until the Alamo Bowl — to spend two seasons in Norman before the keys were passed to the shiny five-star prospect, a risky move that shows the Sooners’ supreme confidence in Arnold.

Nobody believes in Arnold more than himself.

He’s lived the experience of being a five-star recruit.

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Between 2000-23, there were 140 five-star quarterbacks, according to “ 5-STAR QB: It's Not About the Stars, It's About the Journey. ” Of those, 69% started at their initial college, 54% transferred once and 14% transferred more than once. Just 4.2% — six of them — won the Heisman Trophy.

Furthermore, 14% of them were first-round NFL Draft picks and 11% were drafted in the top 10. Just 5% — seven of them — were selected first overall, including Matthew Stafford, Cam Newton, Jameis Winston, Kyler Murray, Trevor Lawrence, Bryce Young and Caleb Williams.

Before Arnold, OU had landed just three five-star quarterbacks out of high school: Rhett Bomar in 2004, Spencer Rattler in 2019 and Williams in 2021 — and none panned out in the Sooners’ favor.

Bomar was dismissed from the program for violating NCAA rules. Rattler won a Big 12 title but transferred to South Carolina after losing the starting job to Williams, who followed Lincoln Riley to USC.

Yogi Roth, a college football analyst and Elite 11 coach who worked with Arnold in 2022 and authored "5-STAR QB," was impressed by Arnold’s ability among an elite class of players like C.J. Stroud and Tua Tagovailoa at the Elite 11 camp.

"You could sense the seriousness to him that I felt with Justin Fields and Trevor Lawrence," Roth told The Oklahoman . “The guys that walked in the room were doing the No. 1 thing that every successful quarterback does, which is, of course, you have to be able to complete a pass. But you have to be an elite competitor.”

Arnold is now just aiming to handle the expectations of playing quarterback for the Sooners.

“It's a blessing for sure, being in that position,” Arnold said. “Not many people can say they were five stars or highly recruited coming out of high school or even had an offer.

“It's a small percentage of people and I'm truly grateful for my recruiting process and the opportunity to go to a school like Oklahoma. There's a great lineage of quarterbacks there and there’s definitely some pressure there but it’s nothing I wouldn’t want put on me.”

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‘Took everybody by shock’

Sharon and Todd Arnold were at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, when they began to feel sick.

It was the Texas 6A Division 2 state championship in 2019 and four-star Texas A&M commit Eli Stowers, Denton Guyer’s starter, was hurt and couldn’t return.

“This is not happening,” Sharon told herself while feeling like she could puke at any minute.

She could not shake a conversation with Jackson earlier that day.

Sharon strolled into her son’s room where he was playing Xbox, something he did to de-stress before games. As a freshman backup, Arnold received 3-4 varsity snaps the entire season, even on a team that routinely crushed teams by 30-40 points.

“I just have this feeling like you're gonna get in today,” Sharon told him.

“Mom, there is no way I'm going to get to play in this game today,” Arnold said.

Arnold, woefully unprepared, ultimately struggled in Denton Guyer's loss.

“It probably wasn’t the smartest idea from our coaches that they were giving him no reps at practice,” Stowers, now a tight end at Vanderbilt, told The Oklahoman . “I was taking all the reps and I went down on the first drive of the game. It took everybody by shock and Jackson by shock.

“We just weren't prepared for it and so Jackson went in, he had no preparation. It was just a really tough position for a young, 15-year-old kid to go into the biggest game in Texas high school football.”

The next season, when Stowers was a senior and Arnold a sophomore, the elder quarterback began to see a shift in production. Stowers was blown away by some of the passes Arnold was completing and it humbled him.

That's when Stowers knew Arnold's talent was rare.

“I was the starter because I had some seniority,” Stowers said. “But I promise you, in practice, almost every single day he was throwing better than me. He was completing more passes than me. He honestly just looked like the better quarterback and that's just something that I've always taken away.”

But in December, Stowers flashed back to that 2019 title game when he watched Arnold throw his first pick in the Alamo Bowl.

“I think it looked a lot worse from a quarterback perspective than what it was,” Stowers said. “There were a lot of times where he just got caught in some unfortunate situations and made some mistakes.

“It looked bad to the audience, but I would just say to Jackson, ‘We've seen what you did after you had that game and in high school where you just weren't necessarily prepared for it. But we knew who you were, we saw how you bounced back from that.’ I would just tell him that it's the same thing at Oklahoma.”

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‘Blocking out the noise’

Jackson Arnold did his best to get away this offseason.

He spent time with his family. His girlfriend, Skyler, was instrumental in the escape. So was fishing.

And Arnold stepped away from social media.

“That's the big kicker right there,” Arnold said. “You’ve got people that like to speak negatively. Pressure-wise, I’m staying off social media and really just blocking out the noise. Pressure can only affect you if you let it get to you and blocking that noise out has been really beneficial to me.”

Arnold can come across as mellow, but behind that calmness is a burning competitiveness to be the best.

So, he spent the offseason working harder than ever.

Arnold lived on his iPad going over the playbook and game film. He studied Seth Littrell's offense at North Texas.

“He's watching film all the time, always reading about things and how he can get better,” Sharon Arnold said. “I think it's just more of him escaping and doing some of the things that he loves because once that time is over, he gets so refocused on what the mission is at hand.”

Jackson worked out at his old high school. He prepared for the season with the trainer of Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott.

Even OU receiver Nic Anderson visited the Dallas-Fort Worth area to build chemistry with Arnold.

As the offseason wore on, his intense competitiveness came out on and off the field. Arnold and receiver Jalil Farooq became deadlocked rivals at the ping-pong table.

“He is a competitor,” Todd said. “He does not like to lose. He may not show that on the surface, but he is a competitor first and foremost.”

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‘We’ve got the right guy’

Jackson Arnold struggled with backing up Dillon Gabriel.

Arnold wanted the ball in his hands every play.

Gabriel was the right person and player at the right time for an OU program reeling from losing former coach Lincoln Riley and quarterback Caleb Williams. Gabriel and Venables’ values aligned and they went 10-2 in their second regular season together.

But the two created a special bond.

“With me and him, it's always wanting the most success for each other,” Gabriel told The Oklahoman . “The support was real when I was playing in how he helped me prepare and how we helped each other in that room. Advice-wise, we just talked through things, having a person that's been in his shoes at that place, and just having conversations about it.

“It was a great time and it was a great thing he was there because that’s family. It was a great weekend to say the least.”

Arnold spent part of his offseason as a counselor at the Manning Passing Academy in Thibodaux, Louisiana. He roomed with Gabriel, When Arnold wasn’t competing alongside fellow SEC quarterbacks Georgia’s Carson Beck, Mississippi’s Jaxson Dart and Texas’ Quinn Ewers in throwing competitions, he and Gabriel spent most of their time together.

“We were just chopping it up one last time before our seasons start,” Arnold said. “We really just started off talking about the season but it even got deep to a point where we were talking about our mindsets. I know we won’t play them in the regular season but hopefully in the postseason. That’d be awesome.

“He's a great dude and he's a great mentor for me and just a great friend. I'm super grateful for the time we had here even though it was cut short. I'm super appreciative of everything he did for me and taught me about college football and this atmosphere, this environment.”

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Sooners coach Brent Venables’ unwavering support of Arnold sends a powerful message. Replacing a player like Gabriel — who is eighth all-time in NCAA passing yards and threw for 3,660 yards and 30 touchdowns in 2023 — is not an insignificant feat.

Gabriel's game-winning drive and touchdown pass to Nic Anderson to defeat Texas last season will live on in Sooners lore.

But this was always planned to be Arnold’s year.

"We've got the right guy," Venables said following the Alamo Bowl.

Venables remains as assured of that as the day OU signed Arnold.

“It feels really good,” Todd told The Oklahoman . “You want your child's best interest at the forefront of all this, because there have been coaches through the recruiting process that I would not have wanted him to go play for. (Venables’) confidence in Jackson reassures me.

“Because honestly, I get nervous. I know what one bad game, two bad games, things like that can do to your confidence. It makes me feel better that they have that confidence in him.”

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‘You have to fail sometimes’

Jackson Arnold and Seth Littrell are cut from a similar cloth.

The Arnolds built a close relationship with former OU offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby’s family over the past few years. Sharon hadn’t spoken to Littrell until last season’s bowl game.

Sharon and Todd have watched the two connect on and off the field.

“There's something special about their relationship, and I am so excited to see what blossoms out of this,” Sharon said. “He's a good man with a good family, and he loves Jackson. I can see that when I see them interact on the field together, and the camaraderie that they've already built over the past year and a half.”

Littrell’s coaching style is more reserved than Lebby’s, matching Arnold’s laid back levity. The two soft-spoken men clicked immediately last season in position meetings.

Arnold has carried himself with a different swagger during preseason camp, repping his high school jersey No. 11 and playing with an infectious confidence that has trickled down the depth chart.

After starring in the Sooners’ spring game, firing deep passes to Purdue transfer Deion Burks and showing off pinpoint accuracy across the middle, Arnold has largely picked up where he left off during practices in the August heat.

Despite some turnover issues throughout camp, Venables has seen the progression he envisioned eight months ago. Arnold is also battling against perhaps the Sooners’ most loaded defense in decades.

“He’s been consistent, he’s been challenged,” Venables said.

Arnold’s maturation has taken significant strides, too. The conviction he walks into the Barry Switzer Center with each day has to do with this iteration of the Sooners being his team.

“I expect big things this season,” Arnold said.

Months ago, Arnold was dealt his first significant struggles during the Alamo Bowl. Big things felt far off. How he responds will be crucial.

“He didn't want to throw interceptions, but he needed it,” Todd said. “You have to fail sometimes, you have to learn to get back up. I think it was vital.”

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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Inside Jackson Arnold's offseason evolution, years-long journey to be OU football's QB1