You can’t tell me that Lincoln Riley would’ve pulled off what Brent Venables just did in 2025
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Close your eyes and imagine this scenario.
It’s the penultimate weekend of the regular season, and you need to win these final 2 games to reach the Playoff. For the 3rd consecutive week, you’re tasked with beating an AP Top 25 team from the SEC. This time, that’ll entail a matchup against the nation’s leading rusher. Your backfield is banged up, and your quarterback might not be fully healthy just yet.
Now open your eyes and tell me who you’d want — Brent Venables or Lincoln Riley?
You don’t have to imagine that reality because it just played out. Venables was the right man to accomplish that once-daunting task. Three games — all of which with win-or-go-home implications for the CFP — resulted in containing 3 prolific offenses en route to an Oklahoma win.
Venables might not be as accomplished as his predecessor, but you can’t tell me that Riley would’ve just pulled off that kind of feat.
That’s not a dig at Riley’s 1-3 record vs. SEC competition during his time at Oklahoma. That’s not really a fair sample size. He bolted for Los Angeles before he could ever get that.
It is, however, a dig at Riley’s ability to win big-time matchups in the often ugly, grind-it-out manner that we’ve seen the 2025 Oklahoma team embrace. Venables can do that, and Riley … well, you know.
For the 5th time this season, Venables led OU to a win vs. a ranked opponent
This time was a 17-6 defensive struggle in which the Sooners held the nation’s leading rusher, Ahmad Hardy, to 57 yards on 17 carries for No. 23 Mizzou. In all 5 of those wins, an AP Top 25 team was held to 26 points or less at the hands of the OU defense.
The last 2 wins were without top Oklahoma defensive player R Mason Thomas, who has been out since his scoop-and-score against Tennessee. That game was the worst statistical showing for the OU defense in that quintet of ranked wins, but it was also a game in which the Sooners forced 3 turnovers against the nation’s No. 2 scoring offense, who was held to 17 points less than its season average.
Not too shabby.
Just for a little perspective, Riley never had to face more than 3 ranked foes in the regular season during his 5 years in Norman. Riley had a 15-6 record vs. ranked foes, which still trumps the 9-7 mark that Venables has as he nears the end of Year 4. The side-by-side will still favor the former, even if Riley’s “defenses” only held ranked foes to 26 or less 1/3 of the time in those 21 matchups vs. ranked foes.
But I digress.
It’s different. Very different. Oklahoma fans know that. Oklahoma fans have embraced that.
Has the rest of college football? That’s a different story. That might not matter as long as the selection committee continues to favor the impressive OU résumé. Last Tuesday’s post-Alabama win ranking was pivotal because at No. 8, not only were the Sooners the top-ranked 2-loss team, but they’re also in line to earn a home Playoff game (that goes to teams seeded 5-8). That matters.
Then again, maybe hosting a home Playoff game won’t be as impactful for the 2025 version of Oklahoma. After all, we just watched Oklahoma go into Alabama and hand the Tide its first home loss vs. an SEC foe since 2019 LSU, and before that, the Sooners became the first non-Georgia team to knock off Tennessee in Neyland Stadium since Year 1 of the Josh Heupel era. That game marked the Sooners’ first true road win vs. a ranked foe since 2019, AKA Year 3 of the Riley era.
Defense travels, and OU’s got it in spades
Saturday’s performance, which saw 2 more of the Sooners’ top defensive players (Robert Spears-Jennings and Taylor Wein) briefly leave the game with injuries, included holding Mizzou without a touchdown. The only 2 other instances of the Tigers being held without a touchdown during the second 6 years of the Eli Drinkwitz era came in 2021 at Georgia, who might’ve had the best defense of the 21st century, and 2024 at Alabama when Mizzou started the ineffective Drew Pyne in place of the injured Brady Cook.
Go figure that Saturday actually marked the expedited return of the injured Beau Pribula for Mizzou. The normally mobile starter might’ve been limited coming off the ankle injury, but it was still no small feat to hold him to -1 total rushing yards. Take away the 4 Oklahoma sacks and Pribula had 4 carries for 19 yards for a Mizzou rushing attack that was held to just 88 sack-adjusted rushing yards. Mind you, Hardy and the Tigers came into Saturday ranked No. 6 in FBS at 241.7 rushing yards per game, and they were held to their worst rushing performance since last year at Texas A&M.
Welcome to the Venables experience. More times than not, it’s what you sign up for when you play Oklahoma.
Time will tell whether the Sooners truly have national championship upside. Despite somehow winning the rushing battle 103-70 on Saturday — John Mateer led the way with 18 carries for 60 yards in a second half that’s only scoring was a Tate Sandell field goal — the lack of a ground game could be the difference there. Oklahoma is averaging 128.2 rushing yards/game. The only national champion since 1936 with fewer rushing yards per contest was 1999 Florida State at 122.8 rushing yards per game.
For now, that’s on the back burner. All that should matter is that OU is now a win away from all but guaranteeing a Playoff berth with a schedule that included 7 games vs. ranked foes. Regardless of what happens the rest of the way, that should be celebrated.
Plenty of coaches would’ve wilted under that kind of pressure. This year, Venables showed that he wasn’t one of them.
Imagine that.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
