Oklahoma Coach Brent Venables Describes Why OC Ben Arbuckle Was 'At the Top of the List'

The Sooners' new offensive coordinator's name kept coming up as Venables searched for Seth Littrell's replacement.

Oklahoma coach Brent Venables / John E. Hoover / Sooners On SI

NORMAN — Oklahoma coach Brent Venables says he spent nearly two months looking for an offensive coordinator. 

All conversations kept coming back to Ben Arbuckle.

Venables staged a press conference on Wednesday to unveil the Sooners 2025 recruiting class — and naturally, the most pressing questions were about his new OC.

“Certainly you look at a lot of things,” Venables said. “You take recommendations. You talk with people they work with. I love watching the tape, because that, to me, is the ultimate resume. You get a feel for things.”

Hall of Famer Bob Stoops famously tells the story from when he went from defensive coordinator at Florida to head coach at Oklahoma, his choice for offensive coordinator came down to wanting someone who gave his ferocious defenses trouble in Gainesville.

That was the offensive coordinator at Kentucky — a guy by the name of Mike Leach.

Venables said he’s never competed against Arbuckle’s offenses at Washington State or Western Kentucky like Stoops did with Leach, but through 30-plus years of defensive coaching, he knows what kind of offense he doesn’t like to face.

“The things that challenge you as a defense,” Venables said, “using the multiple personnels, all of the things from a strategy standpoint that are innovative, aggressive, attacking, putting you in conflict. So whether that's pre-snap, post-snap, it’s personnel, is play design — all of those things combined.

“And then, utilization of how do you put, you know, specializing certain players and putting them in position, leaning on their strengths, all of those things. Some of the things I just talked about are things that, yeah, we've struggled with.” 

Venables said he dove into something coaches have come to rely on breaking down all the important analytics — called the Snyder Report. It’s named after Venables’ old boss at Kansas State, Hall of Famer Bill Snyder.

“One of the best offensive minds in the last several decades in college football,” Venables said. “He has his own report — everything that I continue to look at.

“You know, I've studied offenses more than I've studied defenses over the past three decades,” Venables said. “I have an appreciation for style, presentations, sequences, answers, game plans, personnel and utilizing the personnel, those types of things — and a lot of little things that a lot of people don't see; maybe checks that maybe some people have built into their systems … things of that nature. 

“Then, you know, there's a lot of analytics that maybe support what you see, or maybe bring to light what you need to pay attention to, overall efficiency, explosiveness, first downs, third downs, red zone, points per possession.”