{"id":70408,"date":"2024-09-18T12:25:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-18T17:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/what-oklahomas-brent-venables-said-about-tennessee-on-the-sec-coaches-teleconference\/"},"modified":"2024-09-18T12:25:00","modified_gmt":"2024-09-18T17:25:00","slug":"what-oklahomas-brent-venables-said-about-tennessee-on-the-sec-coaches-teleconference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/what-oklahomas-brent-venables-said-about-tennessee-on-the-sec-coaches-teleconference\/","title":{"rendered":"What Oklahoma\u2019s Brent Venables said about Tennessee on the SEC Coaches Teleconference"},"content":{"rendered":"

What Oklahoma<\/a> coach Brent Venables<\/a><\/strong> said Wednesday during his appearance on the SEC Coaches Teleconference<\/a>, previewing Saturday night\u2019s game against Tennessee<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Opening Statement<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cGood morning. Really excited to go into conference play, historical on many fronts. Joining a new conference, being our first SEC game. Two highly ranked teams. Tennessee, as I said yesterday in our press conference, is playing as good a football as anybody in college football. I love how our team has been tested and improved last week, coming off a win against Tulane and led by our defense, playing at a pretty good level right now. But I love the adversity our offensive players had to go through and especially our quarterback, Jackson Arnold, went through a pick six and loved his toughness and how he responded in the last quarter and a half of that game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain, great challenge this week for us. As I said yesterday, again, Tennessee\u2019s defense hasn\u2019t given up, counting their bowl game, a touchdown in 16 quarters. Just playing outstanding, led by their front. And they\u2019ve done a really nice job helping that their new players transition. And then I think they\u2019ve fortified their offensive line as well in the offseason. They\u2019re playing at a really high level. The quarterback is incredibly confident, comfortable and tremendous skill around him. But Josh has done a fantastic job, no surprise, he and his staff. And then their kicking game, incredibly well coached and really aggressive. So we\u2019re going have to play really well on Saturday night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Any specific memories he has from Josh Heupel\u2019s days as Oklahoma\u2019s quarterback<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cProbably just his best quality was his poise, his control, belief in the players around him. And just as consistent of a player that I\u2019ve been around. The 2000 season, many people probably on the outside don\u2019t know this, but he spent the back half of the year injured. His throwing arm, his elbow as big as a watermelon swollen up at times the last probably five, six games. And the way he managed that, just his toughness, really incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

What stood out about Josh Heupel as a coach once he joined the Oklahoma staff, if he saw this kind of future for Heupel<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHe just always had great humility. Loved the locker room, loved the staff room, just always wanted to learn. Really eager to understand defense even more so. But it was just a sponge and in order to, to be a sponge, you gotta possess great humility and so one of the most humble people I\u2019ve been around.\u201d<\/p>\n

The differences in Josh Heupel\u2019s offensive scheme since 2014 and this Tennessee offense<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe pace and the vertical challenge from the get go. They put great pressure on you defensively. With those two things in particular, they\u2019ve run the ball really, really well and they got great balance again, rushing over 300 yards a game and passing over 300 yards a game. So really those three qualities is what I think are the best parts of their offense.\u201d<\/p>\n

The growth of Oklahoma defensive backs Billy Bowman Jr and Robert Spears-Jennings<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJust incredibly high character guys that are just incredibly committed. They\u2019re committed as players to helping each other, helping everybody around them. Got great respect for what it takes to be successful, the willingness to do the hard work every day. They\u2019ve been very consistent with their habits and have shown great toughness, both of them, overcoming injuries at different times and some tough moments along the way as they\u2019ve grown and matured. They\u2019ve really helped each other. I know Robert\u2019s looked up to Billy, but Robert\u2019s willingness to accept knowledge and wisdom and coaching and correction from Billy is pretty unique. But it\u2019s allowed him to grow again expeditiously over the last couple of years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oklahoma using three running backs, the rotation there<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI think you\u2019re going to need all three for the season again, and it\u2019s a very physical conference. You got to be able to establish a run game. I do think that in a perfect world, somebody emerges and becomes the guy and you look those three guys, Jovantae (Barnes) has done a fantastic job. Obviously we\u2019ve talked about him a lot. His health is good and just playing with a little bit different purpose this year as well. And then Taylor (Tatum) has shown great signs of growth and maturity. We know he is incredibly talented and again, he\u2019s playing catch up compared to the other guys from an experience and just having gotten here at the beginning of the summer. So there\u2019s been a lot to learn, but he\u2019s worked hard at it and has made great growth and improvement and I would expect his opportunities to increase as well. Then Gavin (Sawchuk) has been a great leader. A model of consistency. He does everything right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Josh Heupel joking that he expected Oklahoma fans to be quiet while Tennessee was on offense out of respect for his time in Norman<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s wishful thinking, but I\u2019ll say this, Tennessee\u2019s been in the most hostile environments in all of college football. Has operated at an incredibly high level despite that. So this won\u2019t be their first rodeo from that standpoint. But, you know, at the same time, energy and momentum is a real thing and they can help create that here at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

How he feels about where Oklahoma\u2019s special teams units are at heading into this game<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s improved. (Punter) Luke Elzinga has been really good. He\u2019s been terrific in all situations. He\u2019s flipped the field several times. I think he\u2019s got maybe the second most punt inside the 10, and maybe the second most inside the 20, in the country. Our kicker, Tyler Keltner has done a a really nice job. The last two years, we\u2019ve been incredibly inconsistent there. And so (Keltner) has done a great job.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post What Oklahoma\u2019s Brent Venables said about Tennessee on the SEC Coaches Teleconference<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What Oklahoma coach Brent Venables said Wednesday during his appearance on the SEC Coaches Teleconference,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}