-
Dave Wilson, ESPN Staff Writer
ARLINGTON, Texas — Brent Venables’ first season at Oklahoma ended in disappointment with the Sooners finishing 6-7, breaking a string of 23 straight winning seasons.
At Big 12 media day Thursday, Venables said the biggest takeaway from his first season as a head coach was how the Sooners had lacked a little of their Sooner Magic in closing out games.
“We’ve got to learn not to lose to Oklahoma,” he said.
Venables, who was a longtime defensive coordinator at Oklahoma and Clemson, said going 6-7 was “dang hard,” but said that the margin between winning and losing is close and that he can attest to past experience.
“In 2000, we won the national championship [at Oklahoma] and we had a handful of games come down to the last drive of the game,” Venables told ESPN. “At Clemson in 2016, we went 14-1 and eight of the games came down to the last drive of the game. In five of our seven losses [last year], it comes down to the last drive of the game. We were on the wrong side of it.”
He said he and the staff started “peeling back the onion” in January to identify where they needed to improve.
“There’s nothing that escaped needing to improve, becoming more efficient, a better way to do things. And you learn, a lot of times, the most through failure.”
Venables would prefer not to learn as much that way this season, so he embarked on a bit of a makeover, adding 17 transfers — nine to the Sooners’ much-maligned defense, which ranked 99th nationally and allowed 29.6 points per game — and said that adds “competitive depth,” which will help late in games or when players go down to injury.
Last year, the Sooners struggled after Dillon Gabriel was injured in a loss to TCU, with the low point being a 49-0 loss to Texas in which the Sooners passed for 39 yards with two interceptions. The Sooners added five-star quarterback Jackson Arnold in their heralded recruiting class, which ranked No. 4 in the country this year.
“He’s going to be an excellent player,” Venables said. “Got a great future in front of him. And then again, Davis [Beville] and General [Booty], are both improved versions of themselves. It gives us a little more depth there. But it’s a better, much better situation than what it was a year ago at this time, you know, and Jackson showed flashes during the course of the spring. I expect there to be exponential growth there.”
Gabriel remains the starter after throwing for 3,168 yards and 25 touchdowns to six interceptions, but Venables expects him to improve as well.
“Dillon is his own worst critic, and he knows he needs to improve,” Venables said. “This is a guy that led the Big 12 in passing last year, one of the best in college football. He needs to be more efficient; he needs to improve his completion percentage [62.3% last year]; he needs to improve his decision-making.”
Venables said he’s excited to shape this Oklahoma team, which he said features 97 first- or second-year players among the 123 on the roster.
“What I want people to see when they see us play is a humble football team, a driven and hungry football team, a team that’s going to run the football and play great defense. And my expectation is you’re going to see the thumbprint of those traits on this football team this year,” he said.
Sponsored Content
Bet the World Cup in Wager.dm
