What is Brent Venables up to at Oklahoma?

The move to the SEC may be postponed, but Venables is working furiously to correct the Sooners' course after a dismal 6-7 year one.

One of the topics du jour right now in college football fandom is this amazingly inane argument over whether Alabama or Oklahoma can “claim” Jalen Hurts as their own. One the one hand, most of his career, development, and his bachelor’s degree all came from Alabama. On the other hand, they yanked him from the field to win a National Championship in 2018 and were happy to see him leave for Norman.

All right, so there is a certain compelling nature to the subjectiveness of the debate.

I’ve been more struck recently by developments back in Norman, where new head coach Brent Venables has been putting in overtime to try and overhaul the roster.

The year one Venables Sooners went 6-7 overall, which is bad for Oklahoma but really stinks in light of the fact they played the pitiful UTEP, Kent State, and Nebraska as their non-conference slate, lost the Red River Shootout 49-0, and lost four of their final five games. They opened the year 3-0 and still finished with a losing record while finishing 8th in the Big 12.

Venables efforts to restore Oklahoma’s brand of defensive toughness hit some speed bumps and the team averaged 32.8 ppg on offense while yielding 30 ppg on defense.

For 2022 the Sooners lose the following pieces:

• Four out of five starting O-linemen.

• Lead running back Eric Gray (213 carries for 1,366 yards and 11 TDs).

• Starting tight end Breyden Willis (39 catches for 514 yards and seven TDs).

• Lead receiver and top deep target Marvin Mims (54 catches for 1,083 yards and six TDs).

That makes for a daunting year two. In light of that situation, the Sooners have absolutely transformed their roster in the transfer portal. They have 12 players inbound to Norman and 17 outbound to new destinations.

Of those 12 incoming players, six are defensive players and five of those are D-linemen or Edges. They’re also adding a punter (seven defensive incomers, you might argue) and a JUCO transfer (not among the 12) who’s expected to compete for a starting job at cornerback. Clearly Brent Venables is disinterested in heading into year two with a rebuilt offense and another bad defense. With the news that Oklahoma will be in the SEC in 2024, things have become even more urgent.

I’ve already expressed some doubts on this blog on whether you can build a defense from transfers. Defense is about culture, cohesion, sacrifice, and toughness. It’s hard to build those elements with mercenaries. You can see in their selections though the seeds of an interesting approach to defense for 2023.