One stat will tell the story of Oklahoma's 2024 season

The Oklahoma Sooners look to improve to 2-0 on the 2024 season on Saturday night, when they host the Houston Cougars in Norman. OU earned their first win last Friday, defeating the Temple Owls by a score of 51-3.

The prevailing stat from week one’s game was a simple one: Oklahoma forced six turnovers in the 48-point victory and didn’t turn the ball over once. OU turned those six turnovers into 34 points and leads the country in turnover margin heading into week two. This is doubly impressive when you realize that some FBS teams played in week zero and have already played twice, to the Sooners’ one game. Or that some of those teams played FCS programs.

Turnover margin is a stat that Venables got more in-depth on during his coach’s show earlier this week, stating, “When we were undefeated last year, we led the nation in turnover margin. Then in our three losses we turned the ball over 12 times and lost the margin. The saying goes, ‘There’s not a more important stat in the game than forcing turnovers,’ and we got 34 points off of those six turnovers and had a real short field for our offense – played really complimentary football.”

In 2023, Oklahoma turned the ball over three times in their loss against Kansas, but also created three takeaways. However, the Sooners had three turnovers against Oklahoma State and forced just one turnover in the loss. They turned it over six times in the Alamo Bowl loss against Arizona and the defense forced just one turnover. Only in wins against UCF and TCU did OU lose the turnover battle, but still come out on top. In the biggest win of the year against the Texas Longhorns, Oklahoma won the turnover battle three to zero, a stat that swung the entire contest.

As the Sooners enter the unforgiving gauntlet that is the Southeastern Conference, the turnover margin will be something to keep an eye on, especially with a new starting quarterback in Jackson Arnold. In the loss against Arizona, Arnold tossed three interceptions and lost a fumble, but was turnover-free in his first outing as OU’s full-time starter last Friday.

Oklahoma is off to a great start in this stat in 2024 and would love to see the margin grow again in week two against Houston. The Sooners have been given three weeks of tuneup games before SEC play begins, giving them time to work out the kinks on all three units.

Turnovers are the great equalizer in football, and Oklahoma hopes to turn that in their favor, and they have a great defense to rely on to make a statement in their new league.