Oklahoma Players Dealt With Widespread Cultural Changes, and 'It Was Pretty Rough'

Brent Venables changed their academic schedule, practice times, workout regimen and more, and Marvin Mims said so many changes made it hard to cultivate leadership.

LUBBOCK, TX — Oklahoma wide receiver Marvin Mims made news on Saturday night when he caught five passes for 162 yards and two touchdowns in the Sooners’ loss to Texas Tech, including an almost impossible highlight-reel catch.

He made news again when he said after the game that he would indeed “definitely” play in the Sooners’ bowl game, although he added he wasn’t prepared yet to commit to anything beyond that, such as declaring for the NFL Draft or returning for his senior year.

Mims then made even more news when he described how the team hasn’t really handled all the culture changes in year one under first-year coach Brent Venables.

“The biggest thing about him, it's just — I wouldn’t call it a culture shock,” Mims said. "But, you know, he brought a lot of things that players have to get adjusted to, especially Coach Schmitty (strength coach Jerry Schmidt) coming back. I mean, there's no, you know, teeter-tottering on the line and stuff like that. You got to do the things he wants you to do the ways he wants you to do them. Basically, that's the biggest thing, is just getting adjusted to that.

Marvin Mims with an INSANE grab👀

pic.twitter.com/uA4twNhS0d

— PFF College (@PFF_College) November 27, 2022

“The hardest thing is with leadership and stuff like that. I mean, us older guys have gone out there and won games. But as far as through Coach Venables and the things he wants, and the ways that he wants things to be done, I mean, it's hard to be leaders to that stuff when we're new to it, too. You know, I feel like that was the biggest change this year, as far as in the summer workouts and stuff. We were all buying into Schmitty and we can all do that, and then we get to the season, where game planning is different, hotel situations might be different, how we travel, like how we do the meetings at the hotel, all that stuff is different. So it just takes some getting adjusted to.”

Mims said it was “definitely not” too much all at once when Venables came in and changed everything. But it wasn’t easy — and it wasn’t all about Schmidt’s more demanding workouts. Venables offered “holistic” changes — and that’s exactly what he implemented, in the form of programmatic, logistical and fundamental alterations to everything the players had become accustomed to.

“I mean, honestly, it was pretty rough adjusting to it sometimes, you know?” Mims said. “With the night practice instead of morning practice, and classes in the morning and lift in the morning and then class, then come back and practice. I mean, it's definitely difficult. But you know, if it was easy, everybody would do it."

And in the case of Mims and the rest of the receiver group, their position coach, Cale Gundy, was forced to resign just before the season, and they were coached by a first-time coach in L'Damian Washington.

“And at the end of the day, I mean, we went through it, we got adjusted to it," Mims said. "You know, we just got more years to build on it as far as Coach Venables is going to be here. I mean, at the end of the day, we're the first group to go through it. So I feel like there's a lot of learning that goes with the first group at the end of the day. I mean, we just got to keep building from here as a program.”

In the wake of yet another close loss, Venables addressed future changes on Saturday night — some of them expected to begin as early as Sunday or Monday.

“I don’t think any of it happens quickly,” Venables said. “There’s a million things that you’ve got to do at once. At some point in time we’ll evaluate everything. Everything has its time. You don’t have a calendar, schedule of where all those things that you’re talking about, how that fits. But it’ll all have its time as you evaluate the season. And as we know, we’re not done right now. Looking at things that we do have on the calendar that we’ve got to address right away the first part of this week, and we’ll do that.”

As for his future beyond the bowl game — the Sooners went 6-6 and narrowly qualified for the six-win eligibility threshold — Mims seemed less convicted. He said any decision had been “not fully” pulled apart yet.

“I've been asked a bunch,” he said. “But I definitely plan on playing in the bowl game. Just taking that one out, you know, enjoying the week with my teammates. But as far as after that, I mean, I have no idea what I want to do yet.”

Players interested in exploring early entry into the NFL Draft can submit a formal evaluation to the NFL’s College Advisory Committee, and then those are returned mid-December. Beyond that, Mims hasn’t laid out his own personal timeline for making a decision, although a lot of it will come down to the committee’s eval.

“No, not really. I mean, just couple or weeks what, three weeks until the bowl game maybe? Could be could be before then. Could be after then,” Mims said. “But, you know, I'm just — I mean, I've haven’t even started the conversations with family and coaches and all that stuff. So no, I haven't I haven't decided yet.”

---

Want to join the discussion? Click here to become a member of the AllSooners message board community today!

Sign up for your premium membership to AllSooners.com today, and get access to the entire Fan Nation premium network!

Follow AllSooners on Twitter to stay up to date on all the latest OU news.

Get your OU tickets from SI Tickets HERE.