Brent Venables goes all in to save the Sooners in 2025

USA Today

a day ago

Brent Venables goes all in to save the Sooners in 2025
If the 2025 college football season were a poker hand, Oklahoma Sooners head coach Brent Venables is going "all in." After a devastating 2024 season, Venables and his Sooners have made a number of changes this offseason to get things back on track.
Kenny Rogers said it best when he wrote "The Gambler."
"You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'emKnow when to walk away and know when to runYou never count your money when you're sittin' at the tableThere'll be time enough for countin' when the dealing's done."
We don't know yet if Venables, facing a make-or-break year, has the cards to back his bet, but if he goes down, he's gonna go down swinging.
CBS Sports college football writer Brandon Marcello illustrated some of the changes OU made. Moves like the hire of new GM Jim Nagy, a new battery at offensive coordinator and quarterback with Ben Arbuckle and John Mateer, and a more aggressive stance in the NIL-transfer portal era.
Oklahoma's head coach began re-evaluating his plans in October, amid a dreadful start to his third year leading the program and -- perhaps more important -- the blueblood's debut season in the mighty SEC. He fired his offensive coordinator in the middle of the season, shifted staff responsibilities and then got a head start on mapping out a blueprint for 2025 -- all while the Sooners were still playing games. "We had to," Oklahoma athletics director Joe Castiglione told CBS Sports. "I mean, we would've been foolish not to be looking forward to what we need." ... So, Oklahoma poured more money, time and resources into a full remodel. The university hired a third-party consultant to evaluate the program from top to bottom. - Marcello, CBS Sports.
Both sides of the ball will have new play-callers again in 2025. Arbuckle takes the reins on offense, where he'll also coach the quarterbacks. Venables himself will have more control of the defense this year than he ever has since becoming OU's head coach. He called the plays in 2023 and will do so again this season, but there's no lead defensive coordinator this time around. It'll be Venables' show, now more than ever.
While Oklahoma's defense ranked in the top 25 last season, the offense was dreadfully impotent, ranking 124th in yards per play (4.8). The Sooners certainly were slowed by injuries -- particularly the constantly spinning carousel at receiver -- but it was the lack of consistency at quarterback and an ineffective rushing attack behind an injury-laded offensive line that paralyzed the unit. The Sooners toiled behind one of the least productive schemes in the country during former Sooner fullback Seth Littrell's first and only season as coordinator. - Marcello, CBS Sports.
Arbuckle's hire, in particular, can change things drastically for Sooner Nation. Littrell's scheme was a mash-up of his own style from a long career as head coach and an OC for different Spread and Air Raid coaches and former OC Jeff Lebby's Spread Veer-and-Shoot. To put it mildly, nothing about it worked. From game to game, things looked different, but the result was the same: bad offensive football and not enough points.
After Littrell was fired, the Sooners still had no identity on offense until the final two regular season games, when they ran the ball on a large majority of their snaps due to an ineffective passing game. OU went 1-1 against Alabama and LSU.
Arbuckle brings a true identity in the Air Raid offense back to Norman, and he gives OU a clear direction offensively as a fourth-year play-caller. His mentor is former Texas Tech OC Zach Kittley.
Arbuckle's offense at Washington State averaged 36.6 points per game and 6.6 yards per play, both ranking in the top 10 nationally. Arbuckle, whose quick rise started at Houston Baptist and hit on all cylinders at Western Kentucky after a few years under mentor Zach Kittley, might be the hottest name in the industry. His pass offense has ranked in the top five nationally in two of three seasons as an OC. "I talked to coach Venables for about 30 to 45 minutes about him," said Kittley, now the head coach at FAU. "He was really trying to dig and find a reason, basically, to not hire him, and there was no reason he shouldn't. He's a superstar. - Marcello, CBS Sports.
Venables is also betting on himself in so many ways. His success or failure will tell the story of the 2025 season. His boss, Joe Castiglione, has faith in the man he hired in the winter of 2021.
"Everything has been geared to helping our football program be successful," Castiglione told Marcello. "I feel really, really good about all the improvements that have been made."
We're still over two months away from Week 1, but Venables pushed his chips to the middle of the table long before this season ever began.
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.