The path wasn’t pretty, but grit over glamour has long been the Brent Venables way.
NORMAN — Unwavering.
OU offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle spammed the word like an unstoppable play call when asked Monday what he’s learned this season about his boss, Brent Venables.
“His unwavering leadership, his unwavering standard and his unwavering commitment to being great,” Arbuckle said. “Those three things right there. He lives it every single day in everything that he does, and it’s not hard to see.”
Unwavering as Venables might be, OU football was wobbling under his watch heading into 2025. The Sooners were coming off their second 6-7 season in three years, and their SEC debut had gone splat.
The seat warmers were activated entering Year 4. Venables had to win what, seven games at least to feel OK about his job? Eight to be safe? Nine to change the narrative entirely?
Well, here the Sooners are at 10-2, set to host Alabama at 7 p.m. Friday in the first round of the College Football Playoff. The path wasn’t pretty, but grit over glamour has long been the Venables way.
“I want our guys to be fully immersed in the moment,” Venables said Monday. “Don’t take it for granted. These are the good old days right now. You got a chance to do something really special.”
Four times OU has been to the playoff, all during the old four-team format, but never have the Sooners won a CFP game. Since the playoff expanded to 12 teams last year, making or missing the field is the new standard on which programs will be judged. Especially the blue bloods like Oklahoma.
“I think it’s trending towards that,” Venables agreed. “You'd be naive if you didn’t believe that that’s a real influence to where we’re at right now.”
Unwavering as Venables might have been in leading the Sooners here, don’t confuse his steadfastness with rigidity. Venables was open to change. He had to be.
He brought in an up-and-coming offensive coordinator whom he had no prior relationship with to replace a former Sooner in Seth Littrell. With Arbuckle aboard, quarterback John Mateer would soon follow from Washington State. Even if the OC/QB tandem hasn’t been a smash hit, the process was sound.
Venables ceded some roster-building responsibility to Jim Nagy, the former Senior Bowl executive who was hired in February as OU football’s general manager. Nagy made several hires of his own, rounding out a robust front office.
And Venables went back to doing what he does best — hiring himself as defensive coordinator after his protege, Zac Alley, left for West Virginia. The 2025 Sooner defense rivals the best defenses Venables coordinated at Clemson in the 2010s and at OU in the early 2000s.
The confluence of these moves has restored order at the top of OU football, just as we were questioning who exactly was in charge given athletic director Joe Castiglione’s impending departure. Whatever the balance of power is between university president Joe Harroz, Randall Stephenson — the former AT&T executive who oversees the football program and is leading the AD search — Castiglione, Nagy and Venables on down, it’s working.
Hiring a head football coach won’t be among the first items on the new athletic director’s agenda. The Sooners, no longer teetering, seem to have one of those.
“I love what I do,” Venables said. “I like the good times. I like to be doubted. There’s several people here, you’re doing your jobs, you’ve had to say the bad things, too, about us, about me, and that’s cool … I remember, but I don’t hold on to it.
“You sign up for that, the whole Man in the Arena thing.”
Joe Mussatto is a sports columnist for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joe? Email him at [email protected]. Support Joe's work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: How Brent Venables steadied Sooners, guided OU football to CFP
Category: General Sports
