Brent Venables Explains How Oklahoma Moved on From Caleb Williams to Dillon Gabriel

A lack of communication gave Venables and OC Jeff Lebby a feeling that Williams wouldn't be back, so OU's new coaches moved quickly to land Gabriel.

Brent Venables wanted to give Caleb Williams his space. But Oklahoma’s new coach was always fully prepared to move on without the Sooners’ freshman phenom.

Meeting with the media Wednesday on National Signing Day, Venables explained via a video press conference that he left the ball in Williams’ court — but clearly, in UCF transfer Dillon Gabriel, he had a plan.

“Our intentions were to allow him some autonomy,” Venables said. “He didn’t choose me, he didn’t choose coach (Jeff) Lebby. Part of it is understandable, that I need to maybe reevaluate things.”

On Dec. 29, after Williams’ stellar performance against Oregon in the Alamo Bowl, Venables said he was looking forward to Williams leading the OU offense in the future. But Williams officially entered the NCAA Transfer Portal on Jan. 3. Then Monday, a month later, he announced he was transferring to USC, where he’ll be reunited with Lincoln Riley.

Entering the portal doesn’t mean an absolute exit. OU players Brey Walker and Theo Wease entered the portal in December, then withdrew their names and returned to OU.

But with Venables, he never counted on Williams coming back.

“To me, once you go into the portal, there’s a line that you cross,” Venables said. “I have to assume not that you’re coming back. I gotta assume you’re not going to be here once you make that decision.”

To which, Venables and Lebby had to formulate a plan for a quarterback. That plan was always Gabriel, who played for Lebby in 2019 at Central Florida before Lebby took over Lane Kiffin’s offense at Ole Miss.

Gabriel had already left UCF and had announced his transfer to UCLA — but that never became official. In the span of just a couple days, communication was fast and furious as Williams’ entrance into the portal fell on the same day as Gabriel’s drop-dead date to enroll at UCLA.

“Dillon was supposed to start school Jan. 3,” Lebby said. “Was an online course at UCLA. And if he would have started class, then Dillon would have been ineligible for us for a calendar year. It would have locked him into UCLA. It was a wild 48 hours.

“Obviously, constant conversations. Then incredibly appreciative to Dillon, his mom and dad, for the trust and the faith they had in me and then obviously coach Venables.”

Venables said beyond the obvious of Williams entering the portal, he quickly got the feeling that the QB wouldn’t be back at OU.

“I think after a few days, we didn’t have the kind of communication that would be necessary that would allow us to continue to feel good about an opportunity moving forward,” Venables said. “The communication wasn’t where it needed to be. I don’t know exactly how many days, but at some point in time ... we moved forward.

“Sent a message to our guys that if a guy goes into the portal, my assumption is there’s something they’re not happy with where they’re at. My job is to make sure I have an allegiance and a loyalty to that locker room. I’m going to do what’s in the best interest of that locker room and our coaching staff, certainly the University of Oklahoma. So having known this was a possibility for well over a week going up to the announcement day of Caleb going into the portal, we were ready to respond.”

The timing was fortuitous, but Venables and Lebby’s readiness to move on and Gabriel’s eagerness to play under Lebby again and be a Sooner came together quickly.

Now? There is no quarterback competition. All due respect to 2021 third-stringer Ralph Rucker and Penn State transfer Micah Bowens and incoming freshman Nick Evers, but the job belongs to Gabriel.

“Dillon's our guy right now,” Lebby said. “As we move forward, again, we got one guy on our roster that's thrown a college football pass. Obviously, he’s thrown a bunch of ‘em. He’s thrown ‘em really really well. We're going to move forward that way and go get ready.”