Why Oklahoma Coach Brent Venables Expects To See Improvements in Week Two

With Kent State coming to town this week, the Sooners coach expects to see the usual jump from Week One thanks to players being more accustomed to the routine.

NORMAN — Don’t ask Brent Venables about the old coaching axiom that teams improve the most from Week 1 to Week 2.

“I’ve only been a head coach for one game,” Venables said with a smile during his weekly press conference Tuesday.

Venables, a college football assistant for 29 years before taking over at Oklahoma this season was joking, of course. He’s seen generations of players make that leap from opening day to their second game, and he cited numerous factors at play — things that he’ll consider when the Sooners transition this week from playing UTEP to playing Kent State on Saturday night.

So why, exactly, does that leap happen?

“First game anxiousness — jitters, if you will,” Venables said. “I think that you're finding out what guys do when the lights are bright.

“You know, game one, so you can make some adjustments. But you can't do it the flow of a season. You know, even your week leading up to the first game, it’s slightly different once you get into the season itself. And to make small modifications, at the end of the day, you get into a normal season routine. Sometimes it takes a little bit of adjustment.”

Venables said the improvements he most wants to see this week are finishing and cleaner play across the offensive line.

He wants his team to play to a standard — the Oklahoma standard.

“Don’t beat Oklahoma,” Venables said. “We had some penalties and things of that nature. We have to clean a lot of little stuff for us to make the kind of improvement that we need to make.

“You know, we take points off the board with a penalty on third down. We're extended (UTEP) drives on the fourth down, got a great stop potentially sitting in front of us and we give up a field goal on a fourth down stop with a with a holding penalty on a guy that you didn’t need to hold. And so there's a turnaround. You had a field on that on the drive. We ended up with the holding penalty there and who knows — that worst case scenario, a six-point swing right there with with, you know, things that we can control.

“So the cleanliness of how you play, I think that our intention and hope is that we get better that way.”

Venables also acknowledged there might be too much thinking going into the season opener — paralysis by analysis — versus the daily routine of game week.

“Sometimes when you have less time, that's a good thing,” Venables said. “As a coach, you don't overthink things.

“We'll see that rapid improvement week to week.”