Brent Venables Wasted no Time at Oklahoma, Planting Seeds of Growth ahead of the Alamo Bowl

OU's new head coach knew he needed to establish a new culture in Norman from the moment he was hired on to the job by Joe Castiglione.

AMARILLO, TX — When Brent Venables arrived back in Norman in December, he wasted no time getting to work.

The first time head coach has plenty of ideas on how he wants his program to be run, but first he had to start all the way down at the basics.

“We’re starting over,” Venables said to the crowd of over 100 Oklahoma fans gathered in Amarillo’s Civic Center for the OU Coaches Caravan. “We’re stripping this bad boy down to the studs.”

And while Venables and his coaching staff spent the entirety of winter workouts and spring football instilling a new culture of hard work and accountability, he knew he had work to do to start implementing the changes before the 2021 Alamo Bowl even kicked off.

“I saw too much casualness, if you will,” Venables said of the leadup to the contest against Oregon. “Too much on nonchalantness when I came in December to watch the team prepare for the bowl game.”

As the incoming head coach, Venables said he spent most of the transitional period ahead of the Alamo Bowl in the background, but he did step up in front of the team on a rare occasion to ensure they had the right mindset.

“We lost two heartbreakers, one-score games, could have went either way,” Venables preached to the crowd as he recounted his message to the team. “(The previous) Coach decides he doesn't want to be here? Okay. Good. Now what do you want to do?

“We don't need a program in disarray. … Y'all love this university. You all care for one another. You got a bunch of assistants to decide to go ahead and stay here and put it all in. You got a Hall of Fame coach is willing to put his neck on the line, make some sacrifice and come back here and lead y'all. So you got a chance right now to make a statement in college football.”

The team responded to both Venables and interim head coach Bob Stoops, as the Sooners put on a show in San Antonio.

“We played really well, by the way. Yes, we did. We drug Oregon up and down the field, didn't we? It was 34-3 at half,” Venables said.

The new Oklahoma head coach said he couldn’t contain his excitement to get to work after the game, smirking as he made a joke at Lincoln Riley’s expense that he knew would land with the Amarillo crowd.

“I was like, 'Oh man, I'm the head coach now? Alright,’” he said. “I was like, 'Man, where's this team been all year?’ ”

Banter aside, Venables passionately laid out his vision for the type of team he wants to field every season to the fans present.

“I wanted to make sure you know,” he said, “just over the (last) five months that every opportunity we had to work out man drills, practice, meeting time — If we're gonna be a championship program, how you do anything is how you do everything. And everything matters.

“It's a privilege to put the Sooner uniform on. Your all's job is to be prepared and to play with toughness and passion and intensity and discipline. You show the people how much you care by how you play.”

Venables project is now over five months in the making, and there’s still a long way to go before the Sooners play host to the UTEP Miners to open the 2022 season.

But in the meantime, Venables is taking advantage of every day he gets to continue to lay a strong foundation for his program.