Pressure Is on Brent Venables for Oklahoma to Beat Texas

History shows that the Sooners' coach needs a win in this weekend's Red River rivalry to prove he's a worthy heir of the program.

In Oklahoma’s superiority-laden football history, there is only one frequent opponent with a winning record against the Sooners. That opponent is Texas. The Longhorns own a 63-50-5 all-time advantage in the Red River rivalry, which will be played for the 119th time Saturday.

Sarkisian and Venables will face off for a second Red River rivalry this year :: Bryan Terry/The Oklahoman/USA TODAY Network

Texas has been such a persistent nemesis to Oklahoma that only one coach started his tenure with the Sooners by going 2–0 against the Longhorns: Barry Switzer in 1973 and ’74. Other high-achieving Oklahoma coaches went 1–1 in their first two games against Texas: Bud Wilkinson in 1947 and ’48; Bob Stoops in ’99 and 2000; Lincoln Riley in ’17 and ’18; and Bennie Owen (namesake of Oklahoma’s field) in 1905 and ’06.

Owen scored the first victory in series history for the Sooners, a 2–0 affair that was decided on a safety with a minute left. A website chronicling the rivalry’s history from Texas’s perspective asserts that “a crooked referee called a touchback a safety. We were hooted and jeered from the field.” Meanwhile, the Oklahoma City Daily Times-Journal reported that when the Sooners had won, “pandemonium broke out and for many minutes the wildest kind of excitement prevailed. Men and women became mad from joy and threw hats, canes, ribbons and chrysanthemums high into the air while others picked up the heroic players and carried them across the field upon their shoulders. Everybody was glad because it was Oklahoma’s first victory over Texas.”

Most of the Oklahoma coaches who began their careers 0–2 against Texas proceeded to have undistinguished tenures in Norman, Okla. (The exception is Chuck Fairbanks, who lost the Red River in 1967 and ’68 but still won 73% of his games and finished in the top three in the polls three times.) An 0–2 start against the Longhorns was the fate of Gary Gibbs, Gomer Jones, Dewey Luster, Biff Jones and Adrian Lindsey—names largely relegated to the small type of history.

Which brings us to Brent Venables. The current coach of the Sooners is 0–1 against Texas, and it’s a ghastly 0–1: Last year’s game was a 49–0 massacre in which Oklahoma essentially tried to play without a functioning quarterback after an injury to starter Dillon Gabriel. It’s the worst Oklahoma loss in the history of a series that began in 1900.

Can Venables turn the tables in Year 2? Is he a Bud/Bob/Lincoln 1–1 guy? Or is he a Gomer/Dewey/Biff 0–2?

History says you don’t want to be Gomer.

Venables’s second team is undefeated and markedly improved since 2022, but this was also one of the softest September slates on record for Oklahoma. Sagarin ranks the Sooners’ schedule the 60th toughest in the nation to date, with a nonconference milk run of Arkansas State, SMU and Tulsa. Which is why the noon kickoff in the Cotton Bowl Stadium will be the big reveal for this team.

Venables is a former assistant coach at both Oklahoma and Clemson :: Kevin Jairaj/USA TODAY Sports

Undefeated Texas at least comes in having played someone, or make that someone. The Horns took down Alabama in Tuscaloosa 34–24, which ranks among the biggest victories anyone has had yet this season. In his third season, Steve Sarkisian seems to have just about all the necessary pieces in place for a College Football Playoff push.

Given that opportunity, it’s fair to say that the greater pressure lies upon Sark and Texas. But it says here that Venables needs a legitimately big win to convince Sooner Nation that he’s a worthy heir to one of the best jobs in the nation.

In a rocky 6–7 debut season, Venables’s best wins were over a Kansas team that also finished 6–7 and an Oklahoma State team that went 7–6. Winning the Bedlam Series game is always important, but it was expected against a Cowboys team that was rapidly falling apart late in the season.

In terms of putting a real skin on the wall—some cow hide, if you will—this would qualify. But as a one-touchdown underdog (roughly the same as last year), Venables has stressed this week that this game neither makes nor breaks the season.

“Our vision, if we’re fortunate enough to win the game, we’ll be 6–0 going into a bye week with the back half of a season to go and still have a lot of work to do,” Venables said Tuesday. “If for some reason it doesn’t work out the way we want it to, we’ll still go back to a bye week and still have the back half of the season to attack and try to get better.”

If fans or media members were hoping for public acknowledgement that this matchup of No. 3 Texas vs. No. 12 Oklahoma is a showdown of shattering importance, they weren’t getting it from Venables. Other Venables comments from his downplay dialogue with the media Tuesday:

“I want to win every year, every game. Whether it’s this week or was last week.”

“This may not be the answer you’re looking for, but every week your pride is at stake.”

“Every week is a season. It’s a best of one.”

Compartmentalizing is useful for teams (one week at a time, each season is different, etc.), but that’s not usually how it works for fans. And those who know the history of the Red River rivalry are aware that things usually run in cycles, with long periods of dominance by one side or the other.

Most recently, this series has tilted to cream and crimson. Oklahoma has won 10 of the last 14, after Texas won four of five before that run. And before that, the Sooners reeled off five straight as Stoops took charge. Now the school with the chance to launch a streak is Texas, which hasn’t won two in a row since 2008 and ’09.

Venables is right that the season will go on regardless, and there is a strong chance for a rematch between these two teams in the Big 12 championship game. But history says it’s a much more positive sign for the Oklahoma coach to start 1–1 against Texas than 0–2. Better to be on the Bud Wilkinson side of the ledger than the Biff Jones side.