Commentary: Why Brent Venables Was Ready for Big 12 Media Day

Venables may be a first-year head coach, but he was prepared for the glare of the media spotlight because of his extensive big game experience.

ARLINGTON, TX — There’s a reason Brent Venables’ first foray into Big 12 Conference Media Day went so smoothly.

All those trips to the College Football Playoff, apparently, paid off.

Venables was comfortable and engaging and very much in his element with more than 300 members of the Fourth Estate on Thursday as Oklahoma took its turn in front of the cameras inside AT&T Stadium.

Brent Venables :: John E. Hoover / AllSooners

First-year coaches Joey McGuire of Texas Tech and Sonny Dykes of TCU also seemed to handle the crunch with aplomb. Maybe it’s really not that hard.

But for Venables — who stayed home as an assistant coach (probably in a dark room, breaking down video) while Bill Snyder, then Bob Stoops, then Dabo Swinney stepped into the conference media days limelight.

That’s OK, Venables said afterward. The atmosphere was indeed similar to the media hustle and bustle when teams report to their CFP destinations.

Brent Venables :: John E. Hoover / AllSooners

Coaches are pushed into one room, then pulled into another, then another as various media outlets — from national television to local beat-writers, from national magazines to weekly newspapers and blogs — all need just a minute, just one question, oh, and a quick follow-up.

Venables, 51, was so well-prepared in part because he’d participated in media days at the BCS National Championship Games in 2001, 2004, 2005 and 2008. He stood in an even brighter media spotlight when Clemson visited the the CFP in 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2020.

He took it all in stride Wednesday, attentive, smiling, just being himself and trying to get to as many questions as possible — even jokingly turning one questioner down because “you already asked a question!”

Brent Venables / Big 12 Conference

When his six-hour experience finally ended, Venables lingered with a small contingent of OU beat writers, explaining why he thought his first big day as the Sooners’ head coach went off without even a minor glitch.

Was it a flex by Venables, reminding everyone who might have wondered how he’d handle all the attention that he’d done this type of thing before? And on college football’s greatest stage, no less?

Maybe. It didn’t come off as boastful. Rather, it was just an answer to a question, something from which he’d drawn a good amount of experience over the years — something he was able to put to good use in his first conference media day.