Brent Venables

• 1993-95: Kansas State — Graduate assistant
• 1996-98: Kansas State — Linebackers coach
• 1999-2003: Oklahoma — Co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach
• 2004-11: Oklahoma — Associate head coach, defensive coordinator and linebackers coach
• 2012-17: Clemson — Defensive coordinator and linebackers coach
• 2018-21: Clemson — Associate head coach, defensive coordinator and linebackers coach
• 2022-Present: Oklahoma — Head coach

Brent Venables Coaching History

Brent Venables was hired as Oklahoma’s head coach on Dec. 5, 2021. Venables replaced Lincoln Riley in the job after he departed Norman for the head coaching position at USC after the end of the 2021 season. He had big shoes to fill, as Riley led the Sooners to 5 consecutive double-digit win seasons to begin his coaching career. 

Venables never served as a head coach before taking over in Norman, but he’s one of the most accomplished coaches at the coordinator level in college football history. Between stints at Oklahoma and Clemson as defensive coordinator, Venables coached in 8 National Championship Games and won 3 of them. 

Venables’ list of accolades also includes the 2016 Broyles Award, which is handed out annually to the nation’s top assistant coach. 

Venables is a graduate of Kansas State, where he played linebacker for the great Bill Snyder from 1991-92. Snyder also gave Venables his first coaching experience, making him a graduate assistant in 1993 before elevating him to linebackers coach in 1995. 

During his time in Manhattan, Venables crossed paths with a coach who would alter the course of his career: Bob Stoops. Stoops was an assistant at K-State from 1989-95, so he overlapped with Venables as both a player and coach. Stoops left for the Florida defensive coordinator job in 1996. 

When Stoops was hired as Oklahoma’s head coach in 1999, he brought Venables down to Norman to serve as his co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach with the Sooners. Venables was eventually elevated to assistant head coach and defensive coordinator — a role he served in until his departure after the 2011 campaign. 

Venables a big part of some of the best OU teams in recent memory. That includes the 2000 National Championship team as well as teams that finished as national runners-up in 2003, 2004 and 2008. 

Venables moved on from Norman after the 2011 campaign that saw the Sooners go just 9-3 during the regular season. He landed at Clemson, where he would become an integral part of the latest golden era for that program. 

By 2014, Venables had Clemson’s defense humming. The Tigers allowed just 4.03 yards per play that season, which still stands as the program’s best mark of the 21st century. That season also culminated with a 40-6 trouncing of Oklahoma in the Russell Athletic Bowl to give Clemson what was then its 4th consecutive 10-win season of the Dabo Swinney era. 

But Clemson was just getting started. The Tigers made the College Football Playoff the next season and advanced to the National Championship Game after beating the Sooners again, this time in the Orange Bowl. Clemson finally got over the hump the next season, taking home the national championship over Alabama in 2016. Then they did it again in 2018, beating the Crimson Tide once more. 

Clemson made the National Championship Game again in 2019, but this time fell to Joe Burrow and an all-time great LSU team. Clemson failed to make the Playoff in 2020 and then again in 2021, which proved to be the final season for Venables on campus. 

For the first time in his career, Venables became a head coach at the end of the 2021 campaign. 

He got off to a rough start in Norman, as much of OU’s coaching staff and roster was gutted following Riley’s departure to Southern Cal. The Sooners went 6-7 that season, enduring their first losing campaign since 1998. 

However, OU bounced back with a 10-win season in 2023. That campaign included a victory over rival Texas in the Red River Showdown courtesy of a last-second touchdown pass from Dillon Gabriel to Nic Anderson. OU was the only team to defeat Texas during the regular season in 2022. 

In 2024, Venables presided over Oklahoma’s move to the SEC. The Sooners went just 6-6 in their maiden season in college football’s top conference. Oklahoma had one of the nation’s worst-performing offenses until Venables made a mid-season offensive coordinator change that led to a slight resurgence down the stretch. Oklahoma’s 2024 season was highlighted by a 24-3 upset win over Alabama that knocked the Tide out of the College Football Playoff and ensured OU’s postseason streak would continue. 

Spenser Davis

Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.