Brent Venables calls out team for ’embarrassing’ start to season

Oklahoma coach Brent Venables isn’t making excuses as the Sooners sit at 4-4 with a little more than a month left in the regular season. He does, however, still believe they have what it takes to finish the year on a high note.

OU is coming off of three straight losses and fired offensive coordinator Seth Littrell in the midst of some dismal play on that side of the ball. It looked a better this past week against Ole Miss as it went back to quarterback Jackson Arnold, but still lost 26-14.

With OU in danger of its second losing season in Venables’ first three years, the coach didn’t sugarcoat how things look at the moment.

“My message isn’t going to change,” he said according to George Stoia of Sooner Scoop. “Being 4-4 at Oklahoma is unacceptable. It’s embarrassing. We can’t go back and change what happened, but we can control how we finish this thing.”

With three SEC games remaining, Oklahoma needs to win at least one just to become bowl eligible. The Sooners currently sit in 13th place in their first year in the conference and face ranked opponents in each of their final three games.

OU was able to take a 14-10 lead into halftime this week against the Rebels as Arnold threw for a pair of touchdowns in the first half. However, it would not score a point the rest of the game as Ole Miss pulled away.

These sort of results are not something fans in Norman are used to. The Sooners have had only one losing season since 1999, with that coming during Venables’ inaugural year in 2022.

Now the pressure is continuing to mount on the coach, but he realizes he can’t dwell on what’s already happened. Instead, he’s focused on finishing the year out strong beginning with a matchup against Main this Saturday.

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