SoonerScoop breakdown: Venables’ pre-SMU press conference

Every week OU head coach Brent Venables holds his weekly press conference. And every week SoonerScoop’s Eddie Radosevich and George Stoia will break it all down.

As the Sooners get ready for SMU, a lot of talk about the transfer portal. OU made big-time use of it heading into 2023. The Mustangs cleaned up in the offensive skill positions.

As you looked around college football in the first two weeks, you know how quickly life can change because of the portal because of guys like Shadeur Sanders (Colorado) or Keon Coleman (Florida State).

Venables says…

“It changes based on your needs and what you thought at the beginning of the year,” Venables said. “By the end of the year things reveal themselves and maybe you’re somewhere else. But you have an inkling with guys graduating. Where young people are. What an immediate need, where you can bring a guy in that you feel like can make a difference.

“What the portal allows you to do is you can enhance a position when you have a sudden departure — whether that’s through leaving on their own or maybe you’ve got a bunch of guys at one position graduating or they declare early for the draft. It allows you to…if you don’t have as many questions answered maybe you can bring in a guy that is more of a safety valve, if you will. But the biggest thing, the biggest impact is where somebody can come in at a position of need and make it better immediately.

“So it all depends on where your roster is and what type of guys you’re able to recruit out of high school. Where we have been the first couple of years, to me, my vision is it’ll be not as much. But it’s still going to be…I’m not naive. I know how with the fluidity of players being able to leave, you’ve got to maximize when you feel like you need to…the opportunity to recruit in the free agent market.”

That and more from Radosevich and Stoia in this week’s breakdown.

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