How many wins are needed next season to save Brent Venables’ job at Oklahoma?
Brent Venables has a 22-17 record over three seasons as head football coach at Oklahoma. That’s a winning percentage of .564. Only two other Sooner head coaches who were on the job for three or more seasons had a lower win percentage.
There’s no question more was expected from Oklahoma football, the standard bearer of all OU athletic programs, when Venables stepped into the role. Venables was a broadly popular hire based on his previous 12-year association with the Bob Stoops coaching staff and his decade-long record of success leading one of the best college football defensive units at Clemson.
It certainly was not a coincidence that the Sooner defense was in dire need of a major makeover at the time of Venables’ hiring, having become one of the worst in college football.
While the Oklahoma defensive performance is much improved under Venables from what it was three seasons ago — 19th in total defense in 2024 compared to 122nd in 2022 — the historically explosive Sooner offense last season delivered its worst performance in a quarter of a century.
This is a critical make-or-break season for Sooners and Brent Venables
As a result of all this, Venables finds himself toward the front of the line of the head coaches who enter the 2025 season on the proverbial hot seat and with their jobs highly dependent on much better performance in the coming campaign. In Venables’ case, it clearly doesn’t help his cause that Oklahoma now plays in the conference universally considered the strongest and most competitive in college football.
For sure, there are multiple factors that play into what is considered a successful season for a college football team. On and off the field talent, skill development, roster stability and injuries are factors, of course, that top the list. At a place like Oklahoma, however, history and tradition also play a significant role in determining what success is and the yearly expectations that follow.
It’s patently clear that two losing seasons out of the last three is not a sustainable outcome for a blue blood program like Oklahoma football, let alone a head coach of that program that has experienced just 14 losing seasons in 131 years of college football. Interestingly, the Sooners have nearly twice as many 11-win seasons (27) in their history than they do losing seasons.
The general feeling among some of the big names in college football analysis is that Venables and his staff have and are continuing to make the right moves this offseason to shore up problems and areas of need and put the Sooners in a better position to succeed.
First and foremost, the Sooners replaced the two most important positions for any offense — the offensive coordinator and starting quarterback — bringing in Ben Arbuckle from Washington State and his Wazzu QB John Mateer, who directed the country’s sixth-best scoring offense and 17th-best total offense. A number of college football experts rated Matter the best quarterback in the transfer portal.
OU also should be stronger and deeper at running back with the addition of California transfer Jaydn Ott, who two years ago led the Pac-12 in rushing, gaining over 1,300 yards. There are also recent reports that the Sooners are closing in on another top transfer target in wide receiver Jer’Michael Carter. And Venables said this spring that the offensive line, which has struggled with inconsistency the past couple of seasons, could be the best of his four seasons as head coach.
ESPN college football analyst Greg McElroy is one of several experts who believes Oklahoma is on the verge of a breakthrough season this fall.
“I’m not sure there’s been a team that is going to improve as much as I think Oklahoma has a chance to improve,” McElroy said this week on his “Always College Football” podcast.
“I think Oklahoma is poised for a significant jump in wins. I think Oklahoma is poised to have some breakthrough candidates in multiple different positions.”
Another national expert who likes the Sooners chances to do better in the coming season is SEC Network’s Paul Finebaum.
“I think Brent Venables realized he just wasn’t quite prepared for the SEC,” Finebaum said.
Appearing as a guest this week on the “McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning” podcast, Finebaum said, “I feel really good about Oklahoma. I think Oklahoma has got it together from a quarterback standpoint, from an offensive coordinator standpoint. … I think they’ve filled in some gaps.”
So how many wins does Venables need for the 2025 Oklahoma football season to be viewed as a success and more Oklahoma-like and, more importantly, enough of an improvement for Venables to remain in his job? Seven? … eight? … nine?
The Sooners won 10 games in Season 2 of the Venables coaching era at OU. But the circumstances and level of competition was much different then than it is in the SEC.
For the second straight season, the schedule is not going to do the Sooners any favors. They will play the same SEC schedule they played last season. The only difference is where the games will be played. The home venue reverses this season. And Oklahoma adds Michigan to the nonconference portion of the schedule this season.
In all, six of the Sooners’ eight conference opponents this coming season are ranked in most of the way-too-early top-25 projections for 2025. And you can also add Michigan to the list of ranked opponents.
Most experts would probably agree that, at the very least, Oklahoma needs to avoid another losing season. That would mean a minimum of seven wins. But at Oklahoma that does not constitute a successful season.
Neither does eight or nine wins, to be brutally honest. But that’s what it’s probably going to take to return Sooner football to some sense of national relevance and extend the Venables coaching era beyond four seasons.
Leave a Reply