Oklahoma hired Brent Venables to get Sooners SEC-ready, but they’re scraping bottom of league in debut

Oklahoma coach Brent Venables has made quite a habit of rewriting some of the program’s worst-of records. In 2022, he led the first losing season since John Blake’s last season in 1998. Venables also became the first coach since Blake to fail to get Oklahoma in the end zone against Texas (he’s done it twice). On Saturday, a 32-3 halftime deficit to South Carolina became Oklahoma’s worst at home since Blake’s Sooners trailed Texas A&M 32-0 in 1997. And the 26-point loss to the Gamecocks was the worst at home to an unranked opponent since (you guessed it) Blake, and it tied for the second-worst in program history. 

The Sooners’ disastrous offense gave up direct points via pick six and a scoop-n-score, and another interception in the opening quarter set up a South Carolina touchdown. The Gamecocks cruised, 35-9. 

Most frustrating is how predictable this was. Oklahoma rode into the SEC with a first-year starting quarterback behind five new offensive linemen after the transfer of guard Cayden Green. Three of the top five snap leaders so far are transfers, and transfer linemen have whiffed across the sport. 

Even swapping quarterbacks from Jackson Arnold to true freshman Michael Hawkins Jr. was a wrinkle that only worked for one week. OU pulled the plug on Hawkins after two interceptions in the first quarter Saturday. The defense remains quite good, but it was still outside of the top-40 in yards-per-play defense heading into the South Carolina matchup. For all intents and purposes, Oklahoma doesn’t do anything particularly well. 

Oklahoma’s biggest home losses vs. unranked opponents

To really understand how bad the Venables era has been, you have to understand just how good a program Oklahoma is. The Sooners have a legitimate case as the best program in the history of the sport. Between 2000 and 2021 under Bob Stoops and Lincoln Riley, Oklahoma won 14 of a potential 22 Big 12 championships, a run of dominance that has rarely been matched in modern college football history. 

Outside of a stretch in the 1990s spearheaded by Blake, Oklahoma has never been bad. Outside of the ’90s, OU has not put together a stretch of two losing seasons in three years since 1924. Along with Ohio State, the Sooners are perhaps the most unbreakable programs in the history of the sport. 

That is freaking Oklahoma. What’s happening in Norman is not. 

There is legitimate context to Oklahoma’s issues. Five wide receivers are out with injuries and any offense would sputter with so much attrition. The leading pass-catcher against the Gamecocks was true freshman walk-on Jacob Jordan. And the offensive line was a total disaster, giving up eight sacks. 

Some of those issues predate Venables. Between the 2021 and 2022 classes primarily under the previous staff, the Sooners underrecruited offensive linemen. As On3’s Andy Staples noted, Oklahoma signed only four total offensive linemen in those two cycles. Two have already transferred. For comparison, Georgia and Texas each signed nine. 

At the same time, Oklahoma signed only two combined Top247 linemen in the Classes of 2023 and 2024 combined after retaining respected offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh. Finally, in 2025, the Sooners landed two top-100 players. Five-star tackle Michael Fasusi, especially, might be able to contribute early. At the same time, a strong offensive line class can take two or three years to really mature. Can we really wait until 2027 for the Venables era to deliver results? 

Also, it’s Year 3. Recruiting misses are an excuse for failing to compete with Georgia and Ohio State. It’s a little less context to getting thrown around like a rag doll by South Carolina and Houston. We can’t wax poetic about a struggling offensive line at Oklahoma while rebuilding staffs at Mississippi State and Vanderbilt do a better job of pass and run blocking with far less heralded linemen. 

Compare the trajectory at Oklahoma to the one at Texas since the duo announced plans to join the SEC in 2021. Steve Sarkisian was set to field a 5-7 team in 2021, while Riley led his final team to 10-2 before dipping out for USC. In just three years, Texas rose from missing a bowl to No. 1 in the nation for the first time in 15 years. There was a consistent build and plan that elevated each of his four seasons in Austin. 

For Venables, there’s no coherent timeline. He fielded a veteran-heavy offense in 2023 to try to contend for a Big 12 title, but the easiest schedule in the conference created fool’s gold with a 10-win season. Reaching that mark required only a 1-2 record against AP Top 25 opponents, the lone exception being an upset over Texas in the Red River Rivalry. It also meant losing the final iteration of Bedlam against Oklahoma State to miss out on the Big 12 title game. 

Granted, it’s a harder sell for Venables to take the program through true rebuilding seasons coming off the success of the Riley era vs. Texas facing a decade-long conference title drought. He wanted to thread the needle of competing at the top while rebuilding the foundation. So far, he’s successfully done neither. And in 2025, he’ll have to do it without defensive leaders Danny Stutsman and Billy Bowman Jr. 

When the Sooners hired Venables, there was an understanding that he planned to rebuild the program from the ground up, from recruiting to development. Back in June, Oklahoma extended Venables through the 2029 season on a fully guaranteed contract that will reach nearly $50 million. The whole point of the deal was to shut down any hot seat talk. 

When the dust settles, Oklahoma could be the worst team in the SEC. The Sooners beat Auburn for its lone SEC win, but the Tigers outgained them by 200 yards and lost on the back of their own disasterclass. Mississippi State has a case, too, in the first year of the Jeff Lebby era, but it has improved every week while OU gets worse. The fundamental question is how bad is this allowed to get? 

Oklahoma just lost at home by 26 points to its most winnable opponent left on an SEC schedule that still features four ranked teams, including Alabama. If OU loses out, it would be the worst conference winning percentage in the history of the program. The Sooners can’t scoff at eating more than $40 million, but they also can’t survive more of this. 

Oklahoma hired Venables to get SEC-ready. Instead, in the Sooners’ all-important SEC debut, Oklahoma is scraping rock bottom.