Brent Venables is a coach under real pressure to succeed at Oklahoma next season. Venables’ time with the Sooners has been full of ups and downs, and fans are beginning to have doubts about whether he’s the right man for the program or not.
Venables led to the Sooners to a 6-7 season in 2022, but got on track with a 10-3 season in 2023. Oklahoma regressed back to a 6-7 record in 2024, and next season seems like a make-or-break for Venables. He’s made some big changes to the program this offseason to try and set himself up as best as he possibly can for next season.
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College Football Analyst Josh Pate, on his YouTube show, analysed the early season matchups next season and picked Oklahoma’s week 2 encounter with Michigan as the notable game to watch that week.
“It’s got to be Michigan and Oklahoma,” Pate said. “For me, there’s so much pressure on this Oklahoma staff this year, this will be where we learn about the whole John Mateer experiment at quarterback, the Ben Arbuckle experiment at offensive coordinator.”
“Now they would argue, what do you mean? Experiment, we’ve already proven ourselves. And then everyone else is going to say, Yeah, you did. And in Washington, this is the SEC and then Michigan is going to say, we’re a Big Ten team.”
With the way last season panned out, there are a couple of things, or more, that Venables and the Sooners have to work on this coming season. The red zone defense is one of the things they have to work on, as Oklahoma let opponents score about 82% of the time once they reached the red zone last season.
The worst part of that is that 58% of the scores were touchdowns instead of field goals.
Venables must also fill Danny Stuntsman’s void. Stuntsman led the team with 109 tackles last season and has been the Sooners’ defensive anchor for the last three seasons, but he won’t be around next season as he’s already in New Orleans.
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Next Season, Venables will handle defensive play-calling duties himself while Ben Arbuckle will be the offensive coordinator. Arbuckle engineered some of the nation’s most effective passing offenses at Western Kentucky and Washington State. Arbuckle’s Wazzu QB, John Mateer, followed him to Norman.
The Sooners also brought in five wide receivers, and Oklahoma could potentially be one of the best teams in college football next season.
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