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WATCH: Oklahoma Coach Brent Venables Trampled in Tunnel; ‘This is How People Die’

The Sooners' coach tripped before OU's game with TCU and stayed down for nearly 30 seconds as "my face kept getting shoved further and further into the ground."

John E. Hoover

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NORMAN — Brent Venables' day ended up a lot better than it began.

Oklahoma’s head coach was the victim of a pregame tunnel pileup prior to the No. 13-ranked Sooners’ 69-45 victory over TCU — and while everyone laughed about it afterward, it could have gotten very ugly.

“I gotta keep my feet,” Venables said through a pained smile in his postgame press conference. “Somehow, I didn’t keep my feet, and then probably 5,000 pounds fell on top of me.”

Venables, in his second season as OU’s head coach, led the Sooners to a 10-2 regular-season record this season. He also leads the team out of the tunnel every home game — a tunnel that’s lined tightly on both sides with fans and well-wishers and is thick with pregame “smoke.”

Once the smoke starts blowing, it’s a blind run — players literally can’t see where they’re going — and there are some 150 players, coaches and personnel all jammed in the same space.

Video appears to show Venables getting accidentally tripped from behind by senior defensive tackle Isaiah Coe, who was holding a selfie stick and shooting video for OU’s media team.

Venables went down immediately, and as the smoke rolled over him, he didn’t get up — not for several seconds.

While Coe hurdled the fallen Venables, player after player couldn’t see him, and they just kept tripping over him, falling on him, kicking him and stepping on him. It was a tangle of humanity, and more than a dozen players went down.

At first, Venables just felt overwhelming embarrassment to go down like that and to trip up so many of his players in front of 83,000 fans and a national television audience.

“I thought, ‘I’m going to get so made fun of, especially if we don’t win,” he said. “Pretty embarrassing.”

But then, Venables admitted feeling a moment of sheer terror.

“I literally thought in the moment, ‘This is how people die,’” he said. “I’ve always thought, ‘How can you not just get up?’ I’m not making light in any way, but people go to these concerts or whatever and something happens and people are trampled to death. That’s a real thing. Horrific.

Isaiah Coe (94) steps over Brent Venables
Isaiah Coe (94) steps over Brent Venables / Screenshot, T.J. Eckert via Twitter

“I didn’t think I was gonna die, but it was a very real thing. My face kept getting shoved further and further into the ground. You could feel one person after another — ‘This is gonna keep happening.’ ”

He placed one hand on top of the other, stacking them, to illustrate the carnage under the smoke.

“This is kind of what I envisioned,” he said. “And I just kept getting shoved further in the ground. I was thinking, ‘You’ve gotta be f’ing kidding me. This is really happening right now?’ That’s literally what I thought.”

Venables emerged from the pileup about 30 seconds after hitting the grass, checking for cuts and scrapes, and the look on his face said it all.

“I was pissed,” he said. “Not at anybody. Just pissed.

“I’ll be a GIF.”

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John E. Hoover
JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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