The SEC insider Chris Marler has already cooked up some fear for Brent Venables’ Oklahoma Sooners. “Oklahoma has got nine opponents next season that have odds currently to win the national championship among the top 25 in the country.” This year again, the Sooners club fell to the bias. They are the only team in the entire Southeastern Conference that’s going to face nine teams that currently have odds to win the national championship. Well, this is something that’s beyond Venables’ control. But there are areas where the head coach is looking good.
Sooners’ HC had made significant changes with the addition of the new offensive coordinator from Washington State, Ben Arbuckle. However, if there was one position group that was a clear strength of the Sooners in 2024, it was the defensive line. But does that mean the head coach’s seat is all cool? Venables steps into year four, which is also considered the ultimate test in college football. Yet then, the head coach receives an unexpected prediction. But he has to prove himself first.
Two of his three seasons have finished with 6-7 records, and he’s gone 0-3 in bowl games. But Venables has been the game changer when it came to the Sooners’ defensive line. On the July 1st episode of Josh Pate’s College Football Show, the host, Josh Pate, shared, “You look at Oklahoma defensively. They went from 122nd to 79th to 19th. So that’s taken over for Lincoln Riley. There was no defensive identity to speak of there when Venables walked in. And so he immediately got to work on the side of the b- -l he specializes in. It’s just doesn’t really mean anything if you don’t have the quarterback play and you don’t have the OC worked out on the other side. But I do think he’s at the best place he can possibly be.”
Venables established himself as one of the best defensive coordinators in college football with Oklahoma and Clemson over the past 20 seasons before taking up the head-coaching seat. Venables filled out his defensive staff by adding Nate Dreiling as the inside linebackers coach and Wes Goodwin as the outside linebackers coach. The addition of Damonic Williams via the transfer portal, along with the steady performance of Ethan Downs at the defensive end, made Venables’ defensive line a tough nut to crack.
Even though Downs and senior defensive tackle Da’Jon Terry are gone, the Sooners are still among the best defensive lines in college football. That’s when Pate shared that the onus is on Brent Venables to seal it with a big win. “Like if you’re a first-time head coach, if you’re in desperation mode, you can at least rest assured that at Oklahoma, you’ll have everything you need.”
The analyst continued, “You’ll have good players, you’ll have good administrative support, facilities, like everything, the support, everything you need there to win is there. You’ve got to win. I think it’s completely fair. This is not his first year. No one’s saying you’ve got to come in and win immediately…That’s all assuming you know how to win. And it’s totally fair to give the coach everything on the plate that he’s going to need, and by year four, expect him to be winning big at Oklahoma. That’s fair. Brent Venables wouldn’t disagree with that. He knows that’s fair. So that’s the beauty of competition, isn’t it?” Analyst Greg McElroy ranked the Sooners as the No. 7 defense in the nation as we approach the fall. Now, whom can Venables count upon?
Brent Venables, the defensive mastermind at work
More than the defense, McElroy seems to count highly on Venables. “Now I think this group has a chance to be the most improved group in the country from where they were a year ago. Part of why I’m so optimistic about Oklahoma, not just on offense but also on defense, is because of coach Brent Venables. He he got the job at Oklahoma because of how good he is as a defensive play caller.” The head coach has placed his knights, pawns, and bishops on the chessboard.
The defensive tackle room has weapons like Jayden Jackson, Damonic Williams, Gracen Halton, and David Stone. They thrive under the mentorship of Todd Bates. That group might be the strength of the entire team, a stark contrast from what Brent Venables inherited when he arrived in Norman. The next up in line are the defensive ends. The room will be led by R. Mason Thomas, who gave up on his NFL dreams and closed doors to the transfer portal by staying committed to Venables’ squad.
He had nine sacks last season, six of which came in SEC play. Thomas is the best pass rusher on Brent Venables’ team. The head coach ensured to add plenty of versatility when it comes to the linebacker spots in 2025. He counts on Kip Lewis and Kobie McKinzie to start at the inside spots. The head coach has been lucky to return Kendel Dolby. Venables has built the castle—now he needs a championship crown to complete his Sooners fairy tale.
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