DALLAS — Brent Venables says he’s a people person, and he doesn’t like playing against people he knows and likes. The SEC will be torture for him, then.
Sooner roots run deep in the SEC, and that’s ignoring the conference’s new partnership with Sonic. Josh Heupel, with whom Venables coached at OU, leads Tennessee into Norman this season. Shane Beamer and South Carolina come to Norman in October. Eventually, Venables’ Sooners will face Mark Stoops and Kentucky. Mike Stoops is on that staff, too. Jeff Lebby coaches Mississippi State.
In so many ways, Oklahoma’s new home feels just like that — like home.
The Sooners fit. They’re with like-minded athletic departments that will spare no expense to win championships. They’re with like-minded fan bases that will sell out stadiums and strain vocal cords any time, any place.
Oklahoma was the shiny new toy Tuesday at SEC Media Days. When commissioner Greg Sankey introduced Venables on the main stage, he noted that the gathering of cameras just off the stage was the largest he’d seen for a coach entrance at the event. When OU’s 3 player representatives took their respective podiums around the ballroom, the sea of cameras and recorders that surrounded them was larger than any others through the first 2 days of the event. When Venables finished at the main stage and went to the auxiliary room for another 20-minute Q&A session, the first 10 minutes were spent offering thoughts on other schools in the league.
Everyone wanted a piece of the Sooners. Alongside Texas, Oklahoma has been the dominant storyline at these 2024 SEC Media Days in Dallas. And the key question on everyone’s mind is a simple one: OU has been preparing for this move for 3 years, are the Sooners ready now that they’ve arrived?
“I really don’t know how to answer that other than we’re excited for the challenge,” Venables said. “Oklahoma isn’t intimidated as a football program.”
Several weeks ago when the move became official, Oklahoma had a celebratory day on campus. Paul Finebaum broadcast his show from outside the stadium. Coaches had speaking appearances to hype up fans. Sankey went to Norman and sat beside Venables and athletic director Joe Castiglione. They said the move was a long time coming, and Castiglione said the people who weren’t excited about the conference switch (ahem, Lincoln Riley) are no longer with the program.
Venables said then and he said again Tuesday that OU is running toward the SEC.
And the coach has frequently acknowledged the challenges that await the Sooners when league play begins. It’s a deep league. Seven members (not including the 2 newcomers) sit inside the preseason SP+ top 20. The Big 12 that OU and Texas left had 2 such teams.
Most every coach that has addressed the media thus far has been asked what sets the SEC apart and all have said the trench play is a cut above the rest. Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz told me you have to recruit NFL players to be successful in the SEC. Not that it would be nice to get and develop them, rather you have to have them.
And Venables, to his credit, gets that.
“We know the challenges from a roster standpoint,” he said. “The trenches is where this conference is decided year in and year out, incredibly challenging from that standpoint. The length, the speed, the play at quarterback, the coaching acumen from top to bottom. Again, you’re not going to sneak up anywhere, any week in any venue, and show up and luck up and win.”
When Lincoln Riley abruptly left OU at the tail end of the 2021 season, the roster was thrust into a state of chaos. Venables estimated that 75 scholarship players left the program within the first 15 months of his tenure. Forty of those players were on defense.
“Our roster was not prepared for the exodus,” Venables said. “I think that kind of goes without saying, but we had a lot of work to do in developing competitive depth.”
Asked about the Sooners’ readiness at the line of scrimmage, Venables estimated 9 to 11 offensive linemen who are ready to play if needed. On the defensive line, OU has somewhere between 10 and 12 players who can contribute.
Even though Venables is going into Year 3, this is an incredibly young roster. Venables said OU has 52 scholarship freshmen and sophomores. They gave a massive bank of reps to freshmen a season ago. Venables signed several key pieces in the transfer portal this offseason, but he didn’t use the portal to build his roster. The high school class — ranked No. 8 in the country, per the 247 Composite — featured 27 signees. The 2023 class had 26 signees and ranked No. 5 nationally. Through 3 cycles, Venables has yet to sign more transfers in a season than high school recruits. (And he said the 2025 class is going to be a “hell of a class.”)
This has been about building for the long term.
“You’re going to constantly lose guys year in and year out, but you’re trying to create something that has sustainability, longevity, stability and continuity. To me, it comes down to not just the people but creating an environment they want to stay, they want to develop, they want to put the work in and understand that whoever they are as a 17-year-old freshman, they’re gonna look a hell of a lot different when they’re 21, 22 years old,” Venables said. “Ultimately, our identity is going to be defined by the work that we do through the season that we endure.”
Listening to him, the long view seems to be the play for Venables. He talked Tuesday about litmus tests. The 2024 season will provide OU with crucial data points.
They’re not expected to win the SEC (+3500 at ESPN Bet) and they’re not expected to seriously contend for a national title (+7500 at ESPN Bet). Seasons that end without trophies are generally viewed as disappointing seasons in Norman. From 2000-10, Oklahoma won 7 Big 12 championships. From 2015-20, Oklahoma won 6 consecutive Big 12 titles.
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And make no mistake, OU expects to be competitive in its new home, too, but Venables said the Sooners have to go through the gauntlet to truly know what it takes to survive.
“I think you have to go through it. As a coach, I think going through it gives you the best litmus test. There’s nothing that you can read about or even watch on tape, to be honest with you,” Venables said. “It’s a conference that’s about earning what you get, and I think going through it a season you’ll figure that out. You’ll figure out what was good, what wasn’t good, the areas of your program, your roster that need improvement so that you can match up and have an opportunity to compete for championships.”
To that end, Oklahoma’s veteran leaders are focused on a championship. Senior defensive back Billy Bowman Jr. leaned into the microphone Tuesday when asked why he elected to return to Norman and said plainly he wants to win a championship. Whether that’s an SEC title or a national title, his goal is to hoist a trophy.
“When you wake up, you kind of have to know how you’re going to get better. You have to have a plan. You have to know what you’re going to do,” linebacker Danny Stutsman said. “Myself and all the guys in the room on the defense have done a phenomenal job of having that mindset every single day. It’s easy in the summertime to take a day off here and there. We have a very clear plan of action, we have a vision. We know our goals, we know our plans. There’s been very, very few times where someone’s kind of slacked off or not reached the standard. If there is, there’s automatic correction from the leaders.”
That wasn’t necessarily the case throughout a 10-win 2023 campaign.
Oklahoma beat Texas on Oct. 3 to move to 6-0. It survived an upset-minded UCF team the next week to move to 7-0. At that point, OU led the country in turnover margin and sat at No. 6 in the AP poll.
Then it lost consecutive games to Kansas and Oklahoma State. Both were 1-possession defeats. Both went down to the wire.
“I didn’t feel like we handled success very well in any way, starting with me,” Venables said.
He talked to former Alabama coach Nick Saban about that. Saban told him the ability to “sustain emotionally and physically the grind of the season” will be one of the biggest challenges the SEC poses. There’s parity everywhere. Oklahoma’s first SEC conference game is against Tennessee. Its first SEC road game is at Auburn — a place Georgia’s Carson Beck told Jackson Arnold is cursed. The Sooners play Texas, Ole Miss and Missouri away from home. They host Alabama in late November.
This is the show.
It’s like stepping into a jungle each week.
“Everything’s hard. The windows you throw through are hard. The gaps that you run through are small. There’s length, there’s physicality, there’s depth, there’s speed, there’s precision,” Venables said. “You’re not looking at half-filled stadiums, you’re looking at the best of the best. They’re bringing it, and they understand the value of creating an intimidating, loud, difficult environment to operate in.”
Venables is 16-10 as the Sooners’ head coach. Seven of those losses were by 1 score. Another came in the Alamo Bowl last season when OU committed 6 turnovers and still was tied in the fourth quarter.
“I want to be on the right side of those 1-score games,” Venables said. “We’ve talked to our team, talked to our staff about all the efficiencies (needed in the SEC). Certainly there’s a physicality component, there’s a depth component, but there’s also an efficiency component. Whether that’s taking care of the football — we’re 13-2 when we’ve won the turnover margin since I’ve been at Oklahoma and we’re 3-8 when we’ve tied or been on the negative side of the turnover margin. Everything is going to matter.”
For months, everyone has told OU the SEC will be a challenge unlike any it has previously faced. The fan base has been told to lower the expectations. Venables has instructed his team to approach the season with a different lens. Don’t set out to prove people wrong. Go out looking to prove each other right.
“When you look at our team, we’re not outside-in. Everything starts from us. We kind of block out that noise. We know when it’s great, the noise is the best thing ever. Everyone loves what they’re saying about you. As soon as adversity comes, obviously those same people are quick to turn on you,” Stutsman said. “We know what we’re capable of. Like he said before, we’ve got to prove ourselves right. That comes from every single day, every single workout, we have to prove ourselves right. And then eventually you just have seen so much growth, so much progress that it comes to fruition.”
Venables was asked if this OU defense — which has the potential to be special — compares to some of his classic Clemson and OU defenses from the past. He said he doesn’t like comparisons, then delved into an almost-5-minute answer that was quite exhaustive. In it, he had perhaps his best line of the entire day — something that sums up Oklahoma nicely, and doesn’t just fit the defense.
“Their commitment’s gotta be greater than their potential,” Venables said. “And if that is, we’re gonna have a chance to be a really good unit.”
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
