Column: As Brent Venables Works to Fix Oklahoma, He's Also 'Not Naive' About Recruiting Challenges

The Sooners are struggling and now must find a new offensive coordinator, which means members of the 2025 recruiting class could have questions and concerns.

Oklahoma coach Brent Venables / John E. Hoover / Sooners On SI

NORMAN — During his weekly press conference on Tuesday, Oklahoma coach Brent Venables said he doesn’t think about the future because he’s focused on getting his team better for this week’s monumental challenge at No. 18-ranked Mississippi.

But Venables knows that’s not how college football works.

He and his coaching staff may very well be up to their necks in the daily minutiae of game planning for the Rebels. The process of getting ready for a game, and then doing it again and again for 14 straight weeks, is a soul-crunching grind. But he also can’t go through the rest of the fall with blinders on.

Whether he’s firing coordinators or promoting analysts or fortifying the defense or changing quarterbacks or trying to figure out how to get the offensive to block someone, Venables also has to keep his foot on the pedal in the world of recruiting.

There are no days off.

OU’s 2025 class of verbal commitments currently ranks as the No. 7 ranked class in the nation. 

And it’s entirely likely that many of those players — particularly the ones who play offense — have questions for Venables.

So I asked Venables what his message is to those recruits, and what concerns they’ve expressed as the OU offense has labored at the bottom of the NCAA statistics, as he’s fired offensive coordinator Seth Littrell, and as the Sooners have fallen to 4-3 overall this season and just 1-3 in Southeastern Conference play.

“I mean, number one, before I take a commitment, I want to know why they're committing,” Venables said. “If they say, ‘Well, it's just because of this position coach, and that's it,’ that's the end of the conversation. You know, there's going to be a need for more conversation.” 

The player who’s been committed in the 2025 class longer than anyone is quarterback Kevin Sperry. He pledged in March 2023 — while Jeff Lebby was still the Sooners’ quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator. Sperry maintained that pledge even after Lebby left last December for Mississippi State, and didn’t flinch when Venables promoted Littrell. 

He’s stayed with the Sooners despite changing high schools twice since committing.

It would be natural for Sperry — and certainly his future offensive teammates — to have questions for Venables about the Sooners’ next offensive coordinator and/or QB coach, whether that’s eventually Kevin Johns or Joe Jon Finley or someone else.

“I want guys to commit to the University of Oklahoma to enrich their lives,” Venables said. “What this name, brand, this university, means to them (and) their families at the end of the day, you know, I'm the head coach, and it's important that the vision of the program, the decision-making process comes from an alignment with the vision of the program and what they want for themselves through the program.”

There are serious complexities to how a recruit and his family might assess where Venables and the OU program is and their interest in being a part of the future in Norman.

Offensive players, specifically, might have a strong curiosity in who’s going to be calling plays in 2025 — and beyond. They’ll want to know what the new OC’s offense looks like, where he’s been, what players he’s worked with, who he’s sent to the NFL and what he can do for them.

“It could be very emotional,” Venables said. “You know, that goes without saying. But at the end of the day, they have to trust in myself as the leader, (and) certainly the rest of the staff that's here right now, to work on those relationships.”

But there’s another layer to Venables’ next hire, a deeper one. 

No one knows how the next five games will go, but Oklahoma will be an underdog in four of them. If that tracks, the Sooners would have a losing record for the second time in three years under Venables — and in this case, OU’s bowl streak of 25 years could be over.

Meaning Venables will go into the 2025 season on the proverbial coaching hot seat. 

Any offensive coordinator who’s worth consideration of taking the reins in Norman would know this — and that person might have trepidation about joining Venables’ staff, knowing if things don’t turn around immediately, it could be a one-year deal.

That might actually scare away some good OC candidates.

And that could absolutely impact how the 2025 recruiting class approaches these next two months before National Signing Day.

Meanwhile, Venables is going to keep all channels open. 

“You're talking to the guys every day,” he said. “You worked diligently over the last several months — for some guys, several years — at developing really strong relationships that are not going to be life-changing decisions (and) aren’t going to flip the script in the middle of a storm.

“At the end of the day, the vision is for us to have a high-scoring, explosive, diverse offense that recruits are going to want to play for. And there's a body of work here at the University of Oklahoma. You know, we can have the best coaches on the planet here at coaching and mentoring and developing, and we'll have that. So that's really been the message for recruits and certainly their families.” 

And as a once-promising season has spiraled into potential oblivion, Venables knows what to expect: a steady stream of negative recruiting from OU’s rivals.

For instance, offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh has come under heavy scrutiny for the performance of his group, but he does have a verbal commitment from a 5-star prospect, Michael Fasusi, for the first time in his OU tenure. Texas was one of Fasusi’s finalist and is reportedly still recruiting him.

Other players, such as 4-star offensive lineman Ryan Fodje or 4-star wide receiver Cortez Mills or 4-star running back Tory Blaylock, have remained priority recruits for other schools and, as OU’s ugly losses have mounted, recruiters at those schools would naturally see an opportunity.

Negative recruiting is a long-standing college football tradition.

“I mean, I'm not naive,” Venables said. “Even when you're doing well, people are always trying to chip away. This conference that we're in, because we're not recruiting against anybody but the best in college football, best coaches, the best systems, the best development. And so it was that way two months ago, and it's not going to change. 

“You’ve got to recruit every day, and you got to work on those relationships every day. And every once a while, when you have a recruit that gets influenced by that, I'd rather know now than later. You know, ‘You think the kitchen's hot now, just hold on.’ I mean it. Like, within your career, it's gonna be a lot worse. Now, that's not adversity. 

“But I haven't heard of or sensed any panic. I think there's a trust. There's an expectation and a trust. Again, like I said, there's not a whole lot of people that are surprised. People understand, families understand — this is part of the business as well. And so when you do make those life-changing decisions, it goes beyond any one particular coach most of the time.”