Latest news with #Venables
USA Today
5 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
'We know what our team is capable of': Brent Venables expects big things from Oklahoma
The Oklahoma Sooners were predicted to finish in 10th place in the SEC this year by the media at last week's SEC media days. Obviously, if that were to come true, that simply isn't good enough at OU. The prediction makes sense on the surface. Oklahoma went 2-6 in the SEC last year, on its way to a 6-7 overall record. A solid defense was hung out to dry by a poor offense, and the Sooners dealt with wholesale injuries on their way to a bad year. Looking closer, OU has made plenty of changes this offseason that have them confident heading into this year. Count head coach Brent Venables among those who think this year's team is capable of more. Venables joined offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle and co-defensive coordinator Todd Bates at the annual OU Football Coaches Luncheon on Thursday, and he was asked about the Sooners being picked to finish 10th in the conference. According to Jesse Crittenden, who covers Oklahoma for OUInsider, Venables has confidence as the 2025 season approaches. 'We've got a lot to prove, and I like that," Venables said. "We know what our team is capable of. There's no game on our schedule that we can't win.' "I missed the press conference where everybody was praising us," Venables said via The Oklahoman's Colton Sulley, "and justifiably so, we have a lot to prove. ... Our plan is to compete for an SEC championship." The Sooners face one of the nation's toughest schedules in 2025, and will have new play-callers on both sides of the ball for the second-straight season. Arbuckle takes the reins on offense, while Venables himself will juggle his head coaching duties with defensive play-calling duties. Regardless of the challenging schedule and all the "new" in Norman, there's plenty of belief inside the Switzer Center that 2025 will be different from 2024. Venables, his staff, and his players believe that Oklahoma will return to its winning ways this season. Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Aaron on X @Aaron_Gelvin.
USA Today
6 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
USA TODAY Sports has Brent Venables on the hot seat entering 2025
Since 1998, the Oklahoma Sooners have finished below .500 only twice. Unfortunately for current coach Brent Venables, both times it's happened under his watch. Though many are expecting a bounce-back season for the Sooners, the SEC media isn't quite ready to crown them, picking Oklahoma to finish 10th in the SEC preseason media poll. The Sooners are coming off a 6-7 season with a 2-6 record after their first year in the Southeastern Conference. That disappointment, combined with the 6-7 season in 2022, when Oklahoma was still in the Big 12, has put Venables' job in jeopardy. USA TODAY Sports writers Blake Toppmeyer and John Adams ranked the five coaches with the hottest seats in the SEC, and Venables came in third in Toppmeyer's top five and No. 4 according to Adams. Rival Texas experienced little trouble transitioning to the SEC. That adds up to a pivotal Year 4 for Venables, who soon will be working for a new athletic director. Joe Castiglione, who hired Venables, is retiring. - Toppmeyer and Adams, USA TODAY Sports Though a 10th-place finish would be an improvement - the Sooners finished in a tie for 14th last year - it would make Venables' job prospects tenuous, most likely. To help alleviate some of that pressure, Venables hired offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle from Washington State. Along with Arbuckle came quarterback John Mateer. Mateer is considered one of the top transfers in the country after leading FBS in total touchdowns last year, running for 15 and throwing for 29. Running back Jaydn Ott also joins the offense from California-Berkeley, and after being named all Pac-12 two seasons ago, was ranked preseason second-team All-SEC last week. Oklahoma went all in to turn over the offensive group that finished 97th in the nation in points per game in 2024. If they can get an improved performance from the offense to go along with Venables' defense, the Sooners should be in good shape in 2025. The only coaches in the conference with hotter seats are Arkansas' Sam Pittman and Auburn's Hugh Freeze, according to the list. Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions.
NBC Sports
17-07-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
John Mateer earns high praise as Oklahoma enters new era, hoping to return to high Sooners standards
ATLANTA — The Oklahoma Sooners, a storied program with a legacy of seven national championships, have faced uncharacteristic struggles in recent years. After two 6-7 seasons in three years and a 13th-place finish in the SEC under coach Brent Venables, the Sooners hope to get back on track this season. New quarterback John Mateer, who transferred from Washington State, plays a key role in the program's plan to return to the top. Months into his tenure, he's earning praise from coaches and teammates alike. 'This is a guy that wants to win at the highest level. A connector. A guy that leads from the front. As he plays the game, he looks like he's in fast forward a lot of times. A great competitor. Super athletic. Throws the ball really well on the run. Makes a lot of good decisions,' Venables said at SEC Media Days on Wednesday. A strong quarterback is a key ingredient in the Sooners' past success. The QB room in Norman has had a star-studded lineup this decade, led by Heisman winners Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray, Super Bowl MVP Jalen Hurts, first-overall pick Caleb Williams and dominant college QBs Spencer Rattler and Dillon Gabriel. High expectations coupled with an injured receiving corps proved to be an unfavorable combination for freshman Jackson Arnold, who transferred to SEC opponent Auburn after quarterbacking the Sooners' offense in 2024. Venables chose Mateer and defensive playmakers Robert Spears-Jennings and R Mason Thomas to represent the program at SEC Media Days in Atlanta. Despite being on different ends of the field, Spears-Jennings and Thomas have identified Mateer's seamless transition into Norman and the traits that make him an ideal leader. 'He's integrated himself into the team smoothly. If he says he's anxious or he was a little nervous, he didn't look like he was to me,' Thomas said. 'It felt like he'd been here for four years.' Mateer isn't the only newcomer. Oklahoma picked up key pieces in the transfer portal and added five new coaches. One of those new coaches worked with Mateer as an offensive coordinator and QB coach at Washington State, Ben Arbuckle. 'I feel like with Arbuckle and John, they bring a different type of swag with them. I feel like our whole offense has embodied their swag and energy because once they score a touchdown, their whole side is over there running, celebrating with the guys, and that's what you need. You need energy. I feel like these guys here love playing football,' said Spears-Jennings. Arbuckle is one of the reasons for the quarterback's smooth transition. Instead of learning a new offense, Mateer built relationships with his new teammates. 'I was fortunate because I didn't have to learn a whole new offense. I was able to take time to learn the players that I was going to play with and build relationships with them in the locker room, hang out and help them learn the offense,' Mateer said. 'Building relationships is the most important thing to leading. You can't lead people you don't know.'
USA Today
17-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Robert Spears-Jennings has full faith in Brent Venables, excited about Oklahoma offense
Oklahoma Sooners safety Robert Spears-Jennings was one of three players chosen to represent OU at SEC Media Days on Wednesday. Spears-Jennings enters his fourth year in the program, following a very good 2024 season, his first year as a starter. Spears-Jennings will be one of the biggest names on OU's defense this year. The Sooners have to replace a lot of veteran leadership and production on that side of the ball, but Spears-Jennings thinks he and the other returners are ready to take the reins. "Coach (Brent) Venables, Coach (Brandon) Hall, Coach (Jerry) Schmidt, they've all advised me to be more vocal," Spears-Jennings said. "This summer, this spring and this winter, I've tried my hardest, done my best at being a more vocal leader and just leading by example. Me and a couple of other guys have been doing that job very well." Spears-Jennings also spoke glowingly of Brent Venables, as the fourth-year head coach takes over defensive play-calling duties in 2025 after Zac Alley's departure. The OU defensive back says he knows Venables will be great. "Coach V is one of the greatest defensive coaches ever," Spears-Jennings said. "I have all faith and trust in him because he's going to confuse a lot of offensive coordinators and quarterbacks because you never know what you're going to get from him, never know what you're going to run that week. That's what I love about Coach Venables, one week we might be in a whole different game-scheme, formations. Then the next week, you can't really watch our last week's game because we're probably not going to even come out in that formation or the fronts at all ... I feel like we've communicated way better this year because we were taught a quiet defense is a dead defense. So this year we're emphasizing on communication on defense a lot." But it's not just the defense that has Spears-Jennings excited. The veteran believes the Sooners will be much better offensively this year as well. He spoke about what this year's offense brings to the table in practice. "It's definitely more challenging because they bring energy," Spears-Jennings said. "I feel like with (Ben) Arbuckle and John (Mateer), they brung a different type of swag with them. They bring, I feel like our whole offense has embodied their swag and their energy because once they score a touchdown, their whole side is over there running, celebrating with the guys, and that's what you need, you need energy. I feel like these guys here love playing football." Spears-Jennings quietly had a big year in the secondary for Oklahoma a season ago. If he can continue to develop into a game-wrecker for opposing offensive coordinators, it makes the Sooner defense that much harder to tangle with in 2025. Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Aaron on X @Aaron_Gelvin.
USA Today
17-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Brent Venables, Oklahoma Sooners won't shy away from expectations in 2025
The Oklahoma Sooners attended SEC Media Days on Wednesday, which meant fourth-year head coach Brent Venables was at the podium to talk about his 2025 team heading into the program's second season in the Southeastern Conference. Venables dove into plenty of topics in his address to the media. One of those topics was the weight of the expectations of coaching and playing at a place like Oklahoma. In true Brent Venables fashion, he didn't back down from the expectations or the challenges. "Couldn't be more excited about what I've seen up to this point in time," Venables said. "This is a team I love to be in the building with every single day. I believe they have what it takes to claw our back to where I believe Oklahoma belongs. The expectations here and in the locker room are to win at the very highest level and to compete for a championship. That's always been the way it is here at the University of Oklahoma. We embrace those standards and expectations of excellence. You choose to come to Oklahoma to coach or to play on the biggest stage, in the biggest games, and you accept everything that comes with that. In the new era of college football, we expect to be a program that is a year in, year out consistently a College Football Playoff contender. I believe the sum of all of our parts with this football team, the 2025 version, gives us a chance to have a really good football team." It's no secret that the Sooners haven't exactly played up to their own lofty standards in Venables' three years at the helm. A 6-7 season in 2022 was followed up by a bounce-back 10-3 season in 2023. But in 2024, Oklahoma sank back down to 6-7. After a 22-year streak of zero losing seasons from 1999 to 2021, OU has produced two losing seasons in the last three years, all under Venables. The last losing year before Venables' arrival was under head coach John Blake in his final season in 1998. Additionally, the standard in Norman isn't just to have a winning season. The standard is to win conference championships, make the CFP, and win national championships. Oklahoma hasn't been close to that in two of Venables' three years. To his credit, Venables has never shied away from that, even when things got tough. That's a significant part of the reason why he was selected as OU's next head coach in December 2021 and why he still holds the job despite underwhelming returns so far. Venables also talked about the many changes the program has seen this offseason, detailing plenty of "new" inside the Switzer Center this summer. "We've had a lot of changes since January," Venables said. "I'm sure that most coaches stood up here and talked about a lot of changes. That's the environment we're at today between a portal, recruiting, new coaches, new offense, a new GM structure. We've also had tremendous retention, which foundationally for me is what it's all about. Continuity, guys returning with experience and are highly invested in the locker room. They're attracted to the vision of the program. That's incredibly important to me. No doubt we've improved our roster. Again, I believe that we've created a better overall staff with the additions that we've brought in. Top to bottom we've made great gains in the weight room with building more mass, improving our strength, point of attack. We needed to do that. We had a lot of freshmen that played a year ago. Our bowl game, our top 48 players on the offense, defense, two deep, 24 of them were freshmen. We needed to become more functionally strong and be a better point-of-attack team." But the changes didn't stop there, as the coaching staff has some new faces, and of course, new general manager Jim Nagy entered the fold this offseason. "Got five new coaches," Venables said. "Coach (Ben) Arbuckle, Coach (John) Kuceyeski, Coach (Kevin) Wilson, a former offensive coordinator at Oklahoma, and former head coach at both Indiana and Tulsa, offensive coordinator for a good while at Ohio State. A great friend of mine. Really successful coach. One of the best play callers that I've ever been around. He's also on our staff. I hired two linebacker coaches, an outside linebacker coach that's been a coordinator at an elite level (Wes Goodwin). He'll be my outside linebacker coach. Then coach Nate Dreiling, who will coach our inside linebackers. Also been a really good coordinator as well. All these coaches along with our new front office staff, (general manager) Jim Nagy, the depth of people he's brought into the building as well. Hit the ground running. Ton of fun. I love their energy, their buy-in, the things that they've added to our culture day in, day out. It's been fantastic. A change as we all know is inevitable. Nothing ever stays the same. Every year my job and my focus is on how to move the program together, move it forward, face the new challenges, the headwinds that are a part of all of it that you experience every year, but maintaining our mission during that process and not flinching even when maybe a lot of people are." Venables dug even deeper on Nagy's impact and his impact on the program, just in the short time he's been at OU. "We're literally just kind of starting the root system," Venables said. "He hired his last few guys just several weeks ago. Went through our very first cycle that was halfway done when he jumped in. I think you'll really see the fruits of the labor of the vision of what we want to do and what we want to become through that space over the next couple of cycles recruiting. They love it. What I love about Jim and his staff is they're really passionate about what they do. They care about people. They love building things. They work well together. They've got those types of skills." Clearly, "change" has been one of the biggest themes of this offseason for the Sooners. Venables knew it was needed after last season's disappointment. The program has made so many moves to prevent another embarrassing year like 2024 from happening again. "Talking season" is almost over in Oklahoma. In six weeks, the Sooners will put it all on the field. The most pivotal season in Brent Venables' head coaching tenure is about to begin. Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Aaron on X @Aaron_Gelvin.
