New Oklahoma Staff Had a 'Tough Decision,' But Wanted to Coach at OU With Brent Venables

The allure of coaching at a college football blue blood was strong, but not as strong as working under the Sooners' new head coach.

College football coaches probably don’t have to think long and hard about taking a staff job at Oklahoma.

One of the game’s true blue bloods, OU provides the rare combination of job security, career advancement, a rewarding salary and a chance to chase the championship flag at the top of the mountain.

In the case of Brent Venables’ first staff as a head coach, six of his 10 assistants — defensive tackles coach Todd Bates, defensive ends coach Miguel Chavis, safeties coach Brandon Hall, linebackers coach and defensive coordinator Ted Roof and cornerbacks coach Jay Valai, plus quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby — had to be convinced to leave a place they were comfortable and happy and join him as he tries to elevate the Sooner program.

“I’ll tell you what, it's one of the blue-blood programs with tradition oozing out of its ears.”

“It was a tough decision,” said Bates. “You know, you go back and forth.”

Bates, 38, was already an established coach and big-time recruiter at Clemson, working for a legend in Dabo Swinney. The Tigers have played in four national championship games — and won two — since the last time OU was in one in 2008.

But Bates bought into Venables’ pitch.

“I was with coach Venables every day,” Bates said. “I just saw the way he treated players and the way he pushed the staff. I really wanted some more of that, and I had an opportunity. So I couldn't pass it up."

Neither could Chavis, a former Clemson player and support staffer who likely would have had a coaching gig for Swinney had he stayed. But he joined Venables, too, getting out of his comfort zone to take on the challenge of self-growth in an entirely new place.

“We’ve been really pleasantly surprised,” Chavis said. “The only thing I know about Oklahoma was they won a lot of games and everything Coach V had said about it. We came out here just with excitement and ready to get going. Everything has been great so far.”

Chavis, 33, is a young coach whose final season as a Clemson player was one year before Venables arrived as Swinney’s defensive coordinator. He went into the seminary before returning to his alma mater in 2017, and had only been in the game for five years before Venables offered him the d-ends job at OU.

“Working for Coach V is very demanding but man, it is so fulfilling. He just makes everyone around him so much better.”

“Once again, it was something with Coach V,” Chavis said. ”If you get to spend any time with him, you’ll realize just how unique of a person he is. It was very humbling that the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma would ask me to come be a position coach for him. I would say very humbling, more surreal than anything else. Very humbling and so thankful.

“But I have a lot of work to do. The job and the expectations, the standard. I’ve known him for five years. Just because I’ll be wearing the crimson and cream doesn’t mean the standard is any higher or lower. Working for Coach V is very demanding but man, it is so fulfilling. He just makes everyone around him so much better.”

Roof, who spoke with media in February, expressed much the same sentiment.

“When this opportunity was presented to me, I couldn't say yes fast enough,” Roof said. “So excited, humbled, appreciative to be here under the leadership of coach Venables and the tremendous history, tradition that the University of Oklahoma is known for throughout the country.” 

Valai’s perspective wasn’t that much different. Hailing from Euless, TX, he had worked previously at Georgia, Texas and Alabama — “Grey Poupon,” he called his path, meaning the best of the best — and even had two stints in the NFL. He was working for the Philadelphia Eagles when, he said, “the GOAT” called.

That would be Nick Saban, who wanted him to coach corners for the Crimson Tide.

“He’s just a special dude,” Valai said. “And it was one of the hardest decisions, me coming here, and to be honest, leaving him. Because what kind of guy he is and what kind of passion he has, talking ball with the guy. That was was tough. But God led me here for a specific reason with coach Venables and Oklahoma and close to home.”

Valai’s magnetic personality endears him to recruits. He smiles a lot, he insists on knowing your first name, and he’s open when he talks. It’s one reason why his career may seem fast-tracked.

Valai, 34, played at Wisconsin in 2010 and has worked at schools that show the kind of commitment it takes to be among the game’s elite programs — from the fan base to the administration to the coaching staff to those who choose to put on the uniform. It’s at the foundation of every blue blood’s greatness.

“This is a great program and it’s been a great program, but you want to be an elite program.”

“You have to have that in modern day football,” Valai said. “Coach Venables has pushed that since he’s gotten here. Right now, we’re trying to make that jump. This is a great program and it’s been a great program, but you want to be an elite program like the rest of those guys have been, winning like that, because of the details. That’s something coach Venables has done.

“Being at a Georgia and Alabama and seeing the minds behind that, seeing that stuff, and obviously with coach Venables coming from Clemson, who has done it too, seeing the crazy stuff at Texas, I’ve seen all that, too. You see how much people are pouring into it and it helps. It helps a lot. We’re doing that now and it’s going to pay off big for Sooner Nation and what we believe in.”

Hall is another young, magnetic personality, but his perspective is slightly different. Hall has worked at OU and Auburn as a quality control coach, but he’s also worked at Northern Iowa and Broken Arrow High School and Central Oklahoma and Jacksonville State and Troy. 

He was the defensive coordinator the last three years for the Trojans, so of course he jumped at the chance to be at OU — where he grew up cheering for Cale Gundy and OU as a kid from Newcastle, OK, where he received his master's degree, where he worked for Venables and Bob Stoops as a graduate assistant and support staffer and proudly helped helm the OU scout team in practice.

But Hall, 46, clarified exactly why he came back to Oklahoma — and it wasn’t so he could coach a blue blood and make a bunch of money.

“I’m not here because it's Oklahoma, I promise you,” he said. “ … I came back because the one thing that Brent has done for me in my life is he has set that bar very high. The standard is so high. And he does not deviate from that standard.

“I’m here because of him. And I love OU, I do. And I'm going to do everything I can to make this place what I think it can be. But at the end of the day, I came here because I want to be uncomfortable and I'm going to be better for it.”

Hall said he “never thought this was a possibility when I left here 9-10 years ago” because he had “done my own thing” for so long.

“When I thought about the top of college football and that first tier, I couldn’t stop thinking about Oklahoma.”

But, he said, aside from the structural and foundational changes across campus since he left, “This place is different. … This is my home. I was raised here. I was raised a Sooner fan.”

Chavis also looks around at OU’s facilities and resources and is blown away.

“I’ve watched and understood the landscape of college football,” Chavis said. “When I thought about the top of college football and that first tier, I couldn’t stop thinking about Oklahoma. One of five teams that have won 100 games in the last 10 years. One of four teams to make four CFPs or more since the inception of the College Football Playoff.

“Regardless of what anybody thought or my ignorance of the location or the place, we’re in the middle of everywhere. Everyone is a national recruit to us. I knew you had the Clemsons, Alabamas, Ohio States and the Oklahomas. And Georgia is really, really good too. That’s what I knew. And the brand. I knew they wore Jordan as well. Super dope.”

Bates agreed. He got his start at Clemson, but he also knew what was possible at Oklahoma.

“I’ll tell you what, it's one of the blue-blood programs with tradition oozing out of its ears,” Bates said. “You talk about the 50 conference championships. You talk about, since 2000, winning 239 ball games. That doesn't just happen, and that's regardless of who has been at the helm. During that time, three different coaches … at the helm, they just kept it going. Oklahoma has just always been a special place.”

Bates was an Alabama linebacker when Dennis Franchione brought the Crimson Tide to Norman in 2002. He saw 20 years ago, up close and personal, just how special Oklahoma could be.

“I was fortunate during my time as a player at Alabama to play at that stadium. To play right here in that stadium to see what it's all about,” he said. “It didn't turn out our way. For those of you who remember in 2002, Oklahoma ended up winning that ball game.”

Bates saw it again when he was with the Tennessee Titans in 2005-06, and former Sooners Rocky Calmus and Andre Woolfolk and Jason White reminded him.

“You just see the pride that they took in where they played, and that just continued,” Bates said. “So I'm excited to have an opportunity to be under coach Venables and continue that process, to pour into players and make sure they know what they're a part of. It's special."