More than the rivals, it’s the injuries that leave programs in a pool of cold sweat. An important match-up is lined up for this weekend, Saturday, October 12 between No.1 Texas Longhorns and No.18 Oklahoma Sooners. While fighting against Steve Sarkisian’s squad is a tough job in itself, Brent Venables’ woes have been concerning, Thanks to his bunch of players falling prey to injury. Going by the updates it does not look quite promising. As Venables was too busy updating about the players’ status, the Longhorns HC dropped in with a significant update about their QB situation. 

Last season it was the Sooners who defeated Longhorns 30-34. But luck has played an ugly role this time. Sarkisian’s Longhorn now will be returning for another face-off coming undefeated with 5-0 overall. That’s enough for Venables to go into complete panic mode. To top it up, here are some last-minute updates. Sooner insider Mason Young tweeted on October 7, “Brent Venables from coaches show on WR injuries: See where Deion Burks is in a couple days, Jalil Farooq about to get out of his boot, Andrel Anthony recently had another clean up procedure on his knee and feels really good. #Sooners.”

Does that mean OU football could be returning some key WRs against the Longhorns? Well, it’s a 50-50 situation it seems. Burks has been Venables’ most consistent playmaker this season who came up with 26 passes for 201 yards paired with three touchdowns. But he had been forced to hit the pause button owing to his soft tissue injury.

Just when Sarkisian’s squad thought of celebrating, Venables rained their parade, “We’ll see where (Deion Burks) is the next couple of days.” WR Jalil Farooq too underwent surgery after breaking his foot during the Sooners’ season-opening win over Temple, but Venables seems to be hopeful about his return. The same goes for Anthony who is on the last lap of his recovery process after undergoing a clean-up surgery. Even though the injury reports look good, Oklahoma better watch out for Sarkisian’s power QB.

Steve Sarkisian’s strategic QB decision preparing for Brent Venables’ challenge

QB problem has been a constant it seems for all programs. Even the No.1 program like Texas leaves HC Sarkisian without a good night’s sleep. While commenting on the Matthew Sluka situation, the Longhorns HC confessed that he had “a lot of things on his plate.” Well, it basically had to do with his indecisiveness regarding the QB play. It was pretty evident that Sarkisian’s heart throbbed for Quinn Ewers who was down with an abdominal strain injury. On the other hand, it was the pressure to allow Arch Manning to play going by the hype.

It finally looks like, Sarkisian got his answer and has marked the QB play from any confusion before they face off against Venables squad. Good news for the Longhorns fans, their star QB Ewers looks all good now. “Quinn worked last week for our three practices. He practiced again today. I thought he looked good coming off the bye,” assured Sarkisian. 

Then came the big confirmation, “I feel good about him going Saturday, but that remains to be seen.” If the situation favors both Steve Sarkisian and Brent Venables, with Ewers back to his form and Sooners WR looking at its best, who is going to ace the Saturday match-up? Let your opinion pour in!

While you look for the answer, you can check out some in-depth discussions about NIL and NFL in the latest episode of the Think Tank podcast.