Why Brent Venables Was 'Proud' of the Defensive Effort in Oklahoma's Season Opener

The Sooners held UTEP to 13 points and 28 rushing yards in Brent Venables' return to the sideline in Norman.

NORMAN — The Oklahoma defense had a good showing in Game 1 of the Brent Venables era.

Behind a strong performance up front, the Sooner defense held the UTEP Miners to just 28 rushing yards in No. 9-ranked OU’s 45-13 win at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on Saturday.

It was the best showing from an Oklahoma (1-0) run defense since holding Kansas to 19 total rushing yards back in 2014.

And while the overall performance wasn’t perfect, Venables was happy with how his defense looked in the first contest of the season.

“They had one yard per carry on the day,” Venables said after the game. “It's a team that arguably their offensive line is probably their best-coached position on the team, with their emphasis to run the football. I'm really proud of our guys.”

As the Sooners clamped down on UTEP’s run game, it allowed the pass rush to pin their ears back and get after Miner quarterback Gavin Hardison.

Led by defensive end Reggie Grimes’ 2.5 sacks, OU finished with six sacks and nine tackles for loss for the afternoon.

The pass rush worked in tandem with the Oklahoma secondary to prevent too many explosive plays. The Miners had two passes go for 24 yards, but otherwise the OU defense kept everything in front of themselves.

“I thought it was good. I thought our coverage and our pass rush played hand in hand,” Venables said. “We talked about that a lot, playing what good coverage looks like.

“… They max protected some, so the guys had to have a lot of fight to them because it's many times, it was seven-on-three in protection or seven-on-four. And it's hard to get there. But if they're gonna get three guys out, when you can get under and over all the eligibles you have an opportunity to make some disruptive plays. And so I liked how we complimented each other in the coverage and the pressure up front.”

Ahead of the season opener, defensive coordinator Ted Roof laid out an expectation that the defense would play an aggressive, yet disciplined style of football.

Through one contest, Roof said his unit did a good job of living up to that standard.

“I thought there were a lot of really good things,” he said. “I thought we tackled well. I thought it was physical.

“… There’s a lot of things that we have to clean up. We got a lot of work to do, but I thought it was a great start. I was glad to see our guys play clean for the most part.”

The Sooners had to fight through some adversity as well.

Oklahoma’s offense was so efficient on the first three drives, scoring three touchdowns in under four minutes of combined game time, that the Miners held a massive advantage in time of possession.

Roof had to rotate fresh bodies in, and the Miners began to find some success moving the football down the field.

But the defense rallied to only give up 10 points in the first half, a hurdle linebacker Danny Stutsman said the defense was more than prepared for.

“That’s the same offense we go against every single day in practice, so we’re used to that tempo,” he said. “We’re used to when we come off the field, we’re right back on. Sometimes you sit down and you’re sitting right back up, you’re getting ready to go.

“We were prepared. Schmidty’s got us where we have a great competitive stamina, we’re able to run all game and we’re able to play fast, we’re able to play physical for all four quarters.”

There were also other warts — an early roughing the passer and a couple of pass interference calls that Roof said he’d like cleaned up.

But safety Billy Bowman said he thought the performance sent a message that a new era of defense has arrived at Oklahoma.

“I felt like we played the way we wanted to,” Bowman said. “I feel like we came out here and set a tone and just showed that it’s a new ballgame going on in Norman, Oklahoma.”

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