Brent Venables Gives More Context on Seth Littrell, Oklahoma OC Situation

After firing his offensive coordinator on Sunday, Venables shed a little more light on things during his coach's show on Monday night.

Oklahoma coach Brent Venables / BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK

After the Oklahoma offense had been "completely unacceptable and embarrassing" through seven games, coach Brent Venables felt he gave the needed time before making a change. 

Venables on Sunday fired offensive coordinator Seth Littrell after only eight games of calling plays for the Sooners. With the move, co-offensive coordinator Joe Jon Finley was given play-calling duties “on an interim basis,” and offensive analyst Kevin Johns was promoted to quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator. 

Other than a statement included in the university’s press release announcing the change Sunday evening, Monday night on his weekly coach’s show was Venables' first public appearance since making the move. He took a question from host Toby Rowland off the top and then dove in, summing up the OU offense by saying it was "all crap" and said several times that he hoped the change in leadership for the offense would be "a spark" for everyone.

“Well, a lot goes into making those types of changes,” Venables said. “Over the last several months, there's a body of work that you look at all of it and evaluate it. Obviously we haven't played winning football on offense, so you go back and look at why, and there's certainly, we know what some of the issues have been from a roster standpoint, the injury standpoint, and those are very real, without question, but at the end of the day, you look at, OK, if we continue to do what we've been doing, there's a good chance we're going to continue to have the same results. So I think about, again, this goes way back all the way to the very beginning of spring and winter and all that and through the summer and then the season itself. And, again, I look at everything from game plan, player design, sequencing, leadership, the details, little things.

“... At the end of the day, I just felt that I gave it it’s time where I didn’t feel like there was rushing to judgment. And everything doesn’t fall at the feet of Coach Littrell either. I would be remiss if I didn’t say that. And incredibly hard because so many people are affected. There’s a real domino effect. But at the end of the day, I got to do what’s best for the players and certainly the program, and that’s ultimately what led to the decision.”

Littrell was added to OU’s staff before last season as an offensive analyst after a seven-year tenure as North Texas’ head coach. He was promoted to co-offensive coordinator along with Finley after Jeff Lebby left to become the head coach at Mississippi State. Littrell also called plays for the Sooners during their Alamo Bowl appearance last year, which was a 38-24 loss and also Arnold’s first career start as a freshman. Littrell was also a team captain on OU’s 2000 team that won a national championship, which Venables was defensive coordinator for. 

Venables pulled the trigger after the Sooners’ 35-9 loss to South Carolina on Saturday, during which they started down 21-0 because of three first-quarter turnovers by freshman quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr. That then prompted the first switch of the weekend, with Jackson Arnold replacing Hawkins. In the Sooners' lost to Tennessee on Sept. 21, Venables had pulled Arnold after three catastrophic turnovers and inserted Hawkins.

Saturday was hardly OU’s first poor offensive performance. Through seven games this season, the Sooners are ranked 128th of 133 FBS teams in total offense, averaging 288.1 yards a game. That’s also the worst in the SEC. OU is also in the bottom 20 in the country in third-down conversion percentage, yards per completion, first down offense, passing offense, rushing offense, sacks allowed and more. 

“Maybe (the change) provides the spark, too,” Venables said. “I know that we're somewhere in the hundreds in all the different categories, and it's completely unacceptable and embarrassing and well below the standard and it doesn't reflect who Oklahoma has been for a really long time. 

“I had a historical lens that I got to look at, and so I know that there's lots of teams around college football – if there's 20 of them, I don't know – but there's lots of teams that have similar type issues – you have injuries, maybe you have a young quarterback, maybe you have a new offensive line, you got some guys banged up there and there's a continuity thing, and then you have several guys on offense that are in their first year, whether they're an older guy or a younger guy, so I look at that, but I know that we're not the only ones, but why are we historically not where we need to be? And there's been some improvement. It's been incredibly incremental. You don't sound right by saying that, because at the end of the day, the result has been the result, and it's all crap and so for me, I've gotta, again, look out for everybody else and maybe it provides a spark.”

Finley is also an OU alum and has been on staff since before the 2021 season. Johns was formerly an offensive coordinator and QB coach at Indiana, Western Michigan, Texas Tech, Memphis and Duke, which was his last stop before moving to Norman. The two will be in charge of the offense when the Sooners play No. 18 Ole Miss at 11 a.m. Saturday in Oxford. 

Although a major change that made national headlines, Venables said it was not breaking news within the OU program. 

“I've got to do a great job from a leadership standpoint of calling it exactly like it is and there's got to be accountability,” Venables said. “And our guys know that. There's nobody that was quote-unquote surprised by it. It was received, and we moved forward.

“I'm really excited about what I saw. Had a team meeting (Sunday), and there was a surprise there – these are young guys that are looking for, ‘What do we do next?’ And so again, we've got to be, again, confident and aggressive and sure of what we're doing.”