Why Venables, and those around him, are confident Oklahoma will rebound in final Big 12 season

ARLINGTON, Texas – When Brent Venables interviewed for the Oklahoma job in December 2021, athletic director Joe Castiglione asked him a question that he asked all five candidates he interviewed for the opening. 

“What’s your plan to win in the SEC?”

Venables, then the defensive coordinator at Clemson, pondered the question, answered the question in detail, and ended with a question of his own for Castiglione. 

“So, Joe, what’s your plan to win in the SEC?”

Now 19 months and a losing season later, Venables and Oklahoma are a year away from finding out if that plan – both Venables’ and Castiglione’s – is going to work. With one year remaining in the Big 12, it’s paramount that Oklahoma gets on the right track as it enters the toughest conference in football. And Venables’ first season, which was the program’s worst since 1998, wasn’t exactly the best endorsement. 

And he’s the first to admit that.

“It goes without saying, we went 6-7 last year and fell well below our expectations and our standards at Oklahoma,” Venables said during his nearly four-minute opening statement at Big 12 media days Thursday. “But man, we learned and grew a lot as a football program. In five of the seven losses, it goes down to the last minute, two minutes of the game in the fourth quarter with a chance to win. We’ve looked long and hard in the off-season, since January, of what we need to do to become a more efficient football team, and we’ve looked at every single part of our program, how we can improve and get better. Nothing ever stays the same. 

“We spent a lot of the off-season practicing, film review, programmatically, coaching, all the things that you go into a season where we can get better, and really excited about the improvements that we’ve made a year into where we’re at right now.”

In the 197 days since the end of the 2022 season, the pressure on Venables has mounted. It’s as though the further Oklahoma gets away from the season, the higher the expectations have gotten. Whether it’s fans overanalyzing what appears to be a relatively easy schedule or fans living and dying with every high school recruitment win or loss. 

Venables is under a microscope in Year 2. And the only thing that matters in 2023 is winning. 

“Oklahoma is not entitled to win,” Venables said. “They don’t have this monopoly on winning. This is what it takes to be successful, this is the expectation, this is what it takes to be successful, this is the game plan, this is what’s required.”

It’s probably unfair to judge Venables on a single season as a head coach. He had to turn over a roster that was decimated after the departure of Lincoln Riley. He’s done that with a host of transfers. He pointed that out several times Thursday that 97 of the 123 players on OU’s roster are either in their first or second year in the program. That is sure to provide “competitive depth” which Venables said OU had “zero” of a year ago.

And while you are what your record says you are, Oklahoma was truly only a few plays away from winning eight or nine games, losing five of its seven games by one score and four of those by only three points – another stat Venables used often Thursday. 

“That’s part of the development process, is improving and getting better,” Venables said. “We’ll see how fast that happens. I can promise you it never happens as fast as you want it to happen.”

But how come other first-year coaches didn’t have similar issues? The example most use is TCU’s Sonny Dykes, who led the Horned Frogs to a national title appearance in his first season. And many believe his group doesn’t have the talent Oklahoma does, even with the number of transfers. 

That’s a difficult question to answer and one that most don’t have the answer to, including Venables. But what Venables does know is that he won’t change his philosophy as a coach because of his failures. Will he mature as a head coach? Obviously.

But his core beliefs in how he recruits, develops and coaches isn’t changing. 

“A lot of learning and growing and reflecting, and again, really expect to, again, come back this year and learn from those mistakes,” Venables said. “You learn a lot through failure, as we all talk about a lot in dealing with sports. And it teaches you a lot. But if you’re made of the right stuff, winners respond, winners come back a better version of themselves. Winners go right back at it. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

It’s that mentality, Castiglione recalled, that stood out in Venables’ interview. And why he believes a year from now, when Oklahoma is in the SEC, the program will be ready. 

“There is no one who believes in Brent more than me – maybe himself,” Castiglione told SoonerScoop.com. “His passion is unwavering. What you see is real. He has a plan and he knows it takes all of us to execute that plan. And we all know last year is not what any of us wanted, but that’s part of the process. And we all knew this transition would take time and that there would be challenges. 

“We, Oklahoma, are running toward those challenges. We aren’t tiptoeing. And Brent is leading the charge.” 

For now, Castiglione won’t reveal every detail of his or Venables’ plan to win in the SEC. But Castiglione knows his department has to lead the charge in NIL and facilities to give Venables the best opportunity to succeed. The two have had discussions about those topics and are in lockstep about the future of what that looks like. That’s why Venables likely has a longer leash than most realize – Castiglione knows this is a process that takes time. 

And for Venables, his plan is based on recruiting elite talent – especially on the defensive side of the ball – and building a community within a program. So far, while last year’s record doesn’t reflect success, those in and around the program believe Venables has shown signs of accomplishing that. 

On the recruiting trail, he was able to land the No. 7 recruiting class in the country despite a 6-7 record. And they currently trending toward a possibly top-five class this year. Imagine what this coaching staff could do with a conference championship. 

In the locker room, the buy-in from the players remains. And despite a disappointing season last year, there’s confidence among this year’s team that is similar to Oklahoma teams in the past. They expect to win the Big 12 this year, even if few outside the program do. 

“His confidence about it,” Stutsman said. “Confidence doesn’t come from the outcome, it comes from hard work. Obviously last year we didn’t get the outcome we desired, but we’re still confident in everything coach Venables teaches us. We know that we might have missed a few steps here and there, but we’re still on an incline trajectory.”

That trajectory can take a big step in 2023, if Oklahoma can have the type of season most in the program believe it will have. The plan discussed 19 months ago appears to be coming to fruition in every aspect but on the field. And with one final year in the Big 12, that plan has to become apparent. 

Because if it fails this year, the SEC will expose it unmercifully. 

“At Oklahoma, the program is all about us,” Venables said. “We stand on our own two feet as a program and we’re focused on how we can be our best. How we can improve and get better in the areas that we have to improve and get better at. That’s what it’s all about – building it the right way, regardless of what conference we’re in. 

“We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Work to do, indeed. 

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