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USA Today
28-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Where did ESPN rank Brent Venables as a player?
Where did ESPN rank Brent Venables as a player? The time of year when college football fans are hankering for college football but have little recruiting or transfer-portal news to keep up with always produces some engaging offseason content. Way off-season. Over at ESPN, college football analyst Adam Rittenberg put together a tier list of every FBS coach ranked by how good that coach was in college. More specifically, he put coaches into tiers that appear largely unranked, then capped the list with a top 30. So, where does Oklahoma's Brent Venables fit in? Not as high as Tennessee's Josh Heupel, but not in a bad landing spot. The Sooners coach slotted into the "Pre-portal transfers" tier. That tier ranks sixth of eight, though, again, differentiating between the middle tiers is a matter of perspective. Venables fit there because he began his career at Garden City Community College, becoming a JUCO All-American in 1990. From there, he transferred in-state to play for his mentor, Bill Snyder, at Kansas State. In Manhattan, Venables earned All-Big Eight honorable mention status his senior year after logging 114 tackles. No other SEC coach was among the nine remaining in that tier. The top-30 rankings yielded five Southeastern Conference head coaches. At the top, of course, former Sooners Heisman Trophy winner Josh Heupel. He immediately made his presence known in 1999 with 3,850 passing yards and 33 touchdowns. Heupel then led the Sooners to a national title in 2000, recording 3,606 passing yards and 20 touchdowns. He was named AP Player of the Year, won the Walter Camp Award and consensus All-America honors, and was runner-up for the Heisman Trophy. - Rittenberg, ESPN Oklahoma and Tennessee meet on the field with Heupel and Venables roaming the sidelines in Knoxville on November 1 this fall. Last year, Heupel's Volunteers won the matchup in Norman, 25-15. For those with a curious bit of state pride, four coaches with ties to the Sooner State ranked in the top 30. Purdue's Barry Odom (Ada) ranked 24th, Arkansas' Sam Pittman (Grove) ranked 21st, and Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy (Midwest City) ranked fifth. Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions.
USA Today
21-02-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
NFL analyst thinks former Oklahoma star could be Surprise trade candidate
NFL analyst thinks former Oklahoma star could be Surprise trade candidate We've reached the offseason in both college football and the NFL. Player movement is a significant part of both sports. The winter transfer portal has come and gone, but college players will be able to look for new opportunities in April. In the NFL, free agency is right around the corner, and the NFL Draft is under two months away. Typically, there aren't a ton of surprises in the NFL. However, Ian Valentino, an NFL analyst for The 33rd Team, took the opportunity to highlight five surprising trades that could occur this offseason and included Arizona Cardinals quarterback and former Oklahoma Sooners Heisman Trophy winner Kyler Murray. Valentino wrote about five surprising trade candidates in the NFL this offseason, and Murray, who has spent his entire pro career in the desert, was on the list. Arizona has shown no inclination to move Kyler Murray, but the timing of a trade now makes sense. Turning 28 this summer and a season removed from a torn ACL, Murray remains a physically intriguing player who doesn't affect winning in a significant way. He completed 68.8 percent of his passes for 3,851 yards, 21 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions last year and has almost a 2-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio for his career. - Valentino, The 33rd Team The Cardinals have been rebuilding since the failed Kliff Kingsbury experiment blew up in their face. But Arizona improved from 2023 to 2024. Being a dual-threat helps Murray bring more value. He's averaged more than 500 yards and six touchdowns on the ground each season. Arizona still has Murray on its books for another four years and $29.9 million guaranteed, but he'll be angling for more soon. That looming new deal to get more guaranteed dollars is what could trigger an early trade. Does Arizona want to make Murray more than the 10th-highest-paid quarterback as he is now? If not, then calling the Jets, Giants, or Raiders could be the fastest way to sell high on Murray and help this regime revamp with a rookie in 2025 or 2026. - Valentino, The 33rd Team 2024 was Murray's best statistical season since 2020. Last season he threw for 3,851 yards and 21 touchdowns. He also ran for 572 yards and five touchdowns on the year to help the Cardinals to an 8-9 record. That was a big jump in performance from their 4-13 mark in 2023. He was selected first overall in the 2019 NFL Draft by the Cardinals and former GM Steve Keim following Murray's incredible 2018 campaign with Oklahoma. That year, he won the Heisman Trophy, helped Oklahoma win the Big 12 and took them back to the College Football Playoff for the third time in four years. Murray's star collegiate season in Norman happened after he transferred from Texas A&M, redshirted, served as the backup, and was drafted by the Oakland A's of the MLB. After breaking out on the gridiron with his blazing speed and quickness, superior athleticism, and big-play ability, he eschewed baseball to stay with football instead. He took the Cardinals to the playoffs in 2021 but suffered a season-ending injury in 2022.
