Blatant Homerism: OU circles the wagons around Brent Venables
It’s fair to say 2025 is a proverbial “make-or-break” season for Brent Venables as head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners. Although it’s difficult to pinpoint what qualifies as a good enough year for Venables to get another crack in 2026, another campaign that looks anything like the last one will result in a pink slip finding its way to his inbox.
When it reaches that point in the tenure of coaches, they usually don’t survive for long. They might be able to stave off the executioner for a year or two, but it’s frequently a matter of time until they meet their demise.
What would make Venables one of the exceptions? Simply put, embattled head coaches rarely enjoy the kind of support he is currently getting from his employer. The shot-callers at OU clearly want him to succeed.
You could make the case that OU jumped the gun by rewarding Venables with a contract extension last summer coming off a 10-3 season. On the other hand, the extension snuffed out any talk about who would be running the show in Norman in 2025. The show of faith looks prescient now if the goal was to provide him with recruiting ammo in the event 2024 went south.
And consider the resources OU is committing to the program now. Up-and-coming offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle got paid handsomely to leave Washington State to join the coaching staff. A crop of nearly two dozen incoming transfers includes high-priced free agents John Mateer from Wazzu at quarterback to accompany Arbuckle and running back Jaydn Ott out of California. The Sooners also wrote checks big enough to make sure the returning players they wanted to keep didn’t hit the transfer portal. Meanwhile, Venables and his staff had access to enough capital to assemble NIL deals to land must-have high schoolers such as offensive linemen Michael Fasusi and Ryan Fodje and receiver Elijah Thomas.
Ironically, the way OU circled the Sooner Schooners in support of Venables brings to mind a similar effort at Clemson nearly 15 years ago. With head coach Dabo Swinney heading into a pivotal 2012 season, he hired Venables away from Oklahoma with a fat contract to fix the Tigers defense. Pairing Venables with spread guru Chad Morris gave the Tigers a formidable brain trust at the coordinator spots. Clemson went a combined 121-17 between 2012 and 2021, winning two national titles and losing in two other national championship games.
OU isn’t about to go on a 10-year run that would rival what Swinney accomplished at Clemson. (Frankly, those days are likely over for all college football programs.) And even if Venables survives to coach another year, he won’t be that far from the hot seat.
However, the support behind Venables as he has struggled speaks to why OU remains an appealing destination for coaches even as the landscape of college football has changed. As was the case with Clemson and Swinney, OU is making a good-faith effort to give Venables more than enough backing to succeed. Venables has faced significant hurdles beyond his control since he took the job before the 2022 season, but he has received a fair shot to prove himself. That will matter to potential candidates if the Sooners find themselves looking for a new coach any time soon.
Time for nine
The members of the SEC have been talking for eons about the best scheduling format for the league now that it has 16 teams. Merely raising the possibility of moving to a nine-game conference schedule means the league will add an additional game against an SEC opponent to each team’s slate. It’s when, not if.
And if new reporting is correct, we now know the hesitance to add the ninth game probably has nothing to do with ESPN’s willingness to pay for it. According to The Athletic, the SEC’s media rights holder would tack on somewhere between $50-80 million annually to its contract with the conference for another intraleague game.
No, the SEC has been dragging its feet on making the change because the reality is that playing eight conference games instead of nine is a significant advantage for both positioning in the College Football Playoff and marketing.
With three non-conference games instead of four, half of the teams in the SEC are trading games against opponents they will beat way more often than not for a guaranteed loss. Teams that might have gone 8-4 overall with a 4-4 conference record go 7-5 and 4-5 instead. For example, Arkansas is hosting Arkansas State on Sept. 6 this season. Say you replaced that matchup with a trip to Ole Miss – the Razorbacks go from heavy favorites versus the Red Wolves to underdogs versus the Rebels.
Everything about the history of the college football postseason says the system favors teams with fewer losses when it comes time to split hairs. By taking on a ninth conference game, the SEC would produce more teams every season with worse records. Moreover, when the people picking the participants looked at the resumes of SEC teams that are in the running for the CFP, they would see worse records of their opponents versus what they have seen in the past.
That explains why the fate of the ninth SEC game has been tied to overhauling the CFP format with multiple automatic bids for the SEC. By building in a maximal number of spots for representatives of the conference, teams can regularly absorb more losses and still qualify for the tournament. The downside of adding an extra league game is mitigated as a result, and the SEC member schools can each enjoy an extra $3-5 million in TV revenue every year.