Brent Venables vs Steve Sarkisian

The strength of Oklahoma’s team is their ability to protect Dillon Gabriel and set him up to torch teams with vertical passing, but the heavyweight matchup which will get most of the fanfare this week is the one between Brent Venables’ defense and Steve Sarkisian’s offense.

They haven’t really crossed paths too many times. The 2004 National Championship between Oklahoma the USC Trojans occurred when Sark was away coaching with the Oakland Raiders for a season. Sark did coordinate the 2016 National Championship against Brent Venables with a freshman Jalen Hurts after serving as an analyst all season for Alabama in a battle you’d probably say ended in a draw (Venables’ Clemson won 35-31, mostly thanks to Deshaun Watson and the Tiger offense).

When Sark came back to Alabama in 2019 and 2020 they avoided Clemson both seasons. The battle last year between a quarterback-less Venables and Sark in the Red River Shootout was only their second clash and while it was a decisive Sark win, Venables was arguably even more disadvantaged than Sark had been getting installed as offensive coordinator the week of a national championship and asked to win with a freshman Hurts.

So this going to be more of a tone-setting clash between the two…

Brent Venables’ Red River strategies

Brent Venables has often tended to have two different modes for two different types of opponents. He’s often on the attack, aiming to overwhelm opponents with pressure and disguise to such an extent that the offense can’t even function.

He did exactly that against Iowa State last week after a number of initial hiccups. As a linebacker coach by origin (also a linebacker as a player under Bill Snyder and Bob Stoops at Kansas State), Venables puts a premium on having explosive and aggressive playmakers at linebacker he can use to attack offenses. The Sooner defense is still technically a sort of 4-3. He adapted back in 2000 to feature the 6-foot-0, 220 pound Roy Williams as a “nickel” and hasn’t really seen the need for any additional personnel adjustments in the 20 years since such as moving (like Texas did) to a nickel corner model.

The current Roy-backer, now holding the silly title of “Cheetah,” is Dasan McCullough, a 6-foot-5, 225 pound hybrid who’s still learning the ropes in coverage but is explosive blitzing around the box. Mike linebacker is manned by Jaren Kanak, a 6-foot-2, 228 pound sophomore who ran a 10.37 100m in 2021 but is still very new to the linebacker position.

Both of them are dangerous when they know where they’re going and are free to play in attack mode but easily paralyzed by the need to process information. The star of the show is Will backer Danny Stutsman, a 6-foot-4 and 236 pound player who’s excellent at diagnosing offenses and often races into position so quickly he fails to bring his feet or leverage and can get buried by blocking.

McCullough isn’t well aligned initially but does a good job of covering space against the perimeter screen that isn’t coming, Kanak is frozen and doesn’t impact the play, Stutsman gets to his spot but is pancaked.

The other mode for Venables defense is to play a few base defenses on the back end and force offenses to do their work against sound, well prepared defenses anchored by terrific fronts and great overall speed racing to swallow anticipated offensive actions. OU is getting there in terms of speed but they haven’t mastered sound defense yet nor do they have a terrific front. Venables’ strategy in this game will need to be attack and disguise oriented.

Brent Venables has looooong been a fan of bringing disguised Tampa 2 plays into the Red River Shootout and has undoubtedly installed a diverse array of looks and auto-blitzes for Sark’s offense to keep them off rhythm.

The Texas gameplan on offense

Once again, there are multiple vulnerabilities for Texas to explore and once again I suspect Sark will venture some attacks on all of them.

The 11 personnel, “flex Ja’Tavion Sanders into space and fling the ball around” approach Texas employed against Alabama would be a really good way to get after the Sooners. Heavy motion and spread sets would make it much more difficult for Venables to dial up pressure and protect the back end from getting found out and caught.

Additionally, the Sooner defensive tackles aren’t the most sturdy group in the country and as you can see above the linebackers ain’t Teddy Lehman and Rocky Calmus. Texas could get into 12 personnel and bully the Sooners, or create obvious 1-on-1 opportunities outside for Adonai Mitchell and Xavier Worthy.

Ultimately Texas is going to want to win this game in space by turning Venables’ inevitable aggression and disguise against him by catching the Sooners in bad matchups or busts. If Oklahoma gets conservative like a year ago when they played the Flyover and backed the post safety into the end zone every snap, the run game will be there, but otherwise Texas could really step on Oklahoma early with a varied passing attack while mixing in the run.

The best way is to read McCullough, who’s really only effective when either blitzing or fiercely protected over the top by a safety. More specifically, to cue how the safeties align relative to McCullough.

For instance, in a trips formation with Sanders flexed just outside the box the Sooners have to figure out whether to shade the safeties to help McCullough (S below) cover the three-receiver side, or prioritize getting help to the backside corner against Worthy or Mitchell.

If OU stays in base defense to have more blitzing weapons and to help against the run game, which they almost definitely will, they’re going to have issues figuring out how to help over the top against all of Texas’ weapons. This is why teams like Texas like to play with a nickel corner who can credibly carry a vertical as opposed to a big nickel linebacker who cannot. If teams spread you out they can erase your disguises and hammer your weak spots in the passing game.

Venables’ solution will likely be a wide array of zone blitzes which aim to drop three defenders deep and live with what happens underneath if Ewers can get the ball out.

As for the Tampa 2 which gave Texas issues against Rice and Wyoming, Sark has a few plays dialed up for it, often from empty and including this number he ran against Washington in the Alamo Bowl and Baylor a few weeks ago:

He attacks the safeties with vertical slot routes and looks for the isolation between the middle dropper and someone like Worthy or Johntay Cook. Sark lines up his speed man to run down the middle of the defense in between the half field safeties who are drawn outside the hash marks and right by the middle dropper. If protected, it’s a tough cover.

OU has three different vulnerabilities for Sark to hunt in this game and how he balances those will determine whether Texas has a solid day on offense that needs a corresponding defensive effort to land a dominant win, or a “blow em out” offensive showing which settles things early.

Those vulnerabilities are a vulnerable interior run defense, linebackers and safeties who can be exploited in coverage, and also a cornerback tandem who have avoided scrutiny but aren’t a match for the Worthy/Mitchell tandem outside. Look for Texas to use some 12 personnel to attack the run defense and spread sets to attack the middle of the pass defense, but for the home runs to come from Texas punishing Sooner responses to either of those by landing shots outside.

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