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Oklahoma interim head coach Bob Stoops knows what it takes to win at the highest level in college football.
Stoops and his players engineered one of the great two-year turnarounds in college football history when his team capped the 2000 season by beating Florida State 13-2 in the 2001 Orange Bowl to capture the BCS National Championship.
Of course, Stoops went on to add all sorts of other accomplishments along the way throughout his decorated tenure leading Oklahoma. Stoops is the only coach to have won each of the four BCS bowl games and a BCS National Championship.
The Youngstown, Ohio, native finished his 18-year run as Oklahoma’s head coach with a record of 190-48 and won a record 10 Big 12 championships.
As it was with Lincoln Riley before him, if new Oklahoma head football coach Brent Venables ever needs any advice or guidance, Stoops said he’ll gladly help.
Stoops said Venables is prepared for this opportunity, though, and he isn’t expecting to be called upon for much.
“He doesn’t need any help, but I’m going to be there. We’re very close as everybody knows, so of course I’m going to always be there to lend [help]. Now again, not that he needs it at all, but you might as well bounce something off me if you’ve got an idea about something or thinking about something. He knows all I want is for him to do better than I did by a long shot,” Stoops said.
Matching or perhaps surpassing the accomplishments and standard that Stoops set at Oklahoma is asking for Venables to be one of the game’s preeminent coaches.
Still, Stoops believes Venables is capable of just that.
“Again, I just think as you guys all every time you see Brent in front of you, you realize why I’m and everybody’s so excited about what Brent brings. All the enthusiasm, the energy, the toughness,” Stoops said.
Stoops feels Venables’ experience from Kansas State, Oklahoma and especially from Clemson may be exactly what OU needs to get over the hump and end its championship drought.
“I love the experience from Kansas State building that program, to us here at OU building the program back, to what they’ve done at Clemson the last 10 years. He brings a wealth of experience and I love the fact that what they’ve been doing at Clemson is different than what we’re doing here, so I think he brings some great new ideas, and thoughts and ways to run the program and what you need to do to get us from being that 11-2, 10-2 team that’s No. 5 in the country to 15, somewhere in there. Maybe this is what gets us in these next few years over the hump to be that national champion and in the playoffs all the time. I know we’ve been in them a good bit, but I think this can help us even more. He has that background to get it done,” Stoops said.
Venables certainly has the pedigree. Combining his stints at Oklahoma and Clemson, Venables has coached in eight national championship games and been a part of winning three national championships.
Stoops’ confidence in Venables is etched in their shared history. Their relationship dates back to Stoops coaching Venables at Kansas State during the 1991-92 seasons.
Stoops has a saying.
“I got a big-time saying about people. They don’t change. They just get older. Think of your buddies back in college and you run into them 15 years later. They hadn’t changed. They’re just older,” Stoops said.
That’s why when Stoops reflects on who Venables was as a player at Kansas State, he expects Venables to be much of the same as Oklahoma’s 23rd head football coach.
The traits Venables exhibited as a linebacker for the Wildcats are also why Stoops felt Venables was the perfect fit to join Kansas State’s coaching staff.
“Brent was like this. He loved football. He couldn’t wait to go to practice. He was a ball of energy all the time, wanted everyone else to be just like that. Was a leader, captain on our team. I was very adamant that soon as he was finished playing, you need to be here and be a grad assistant with us. I mean, he’s the perfect coach,” Stoops said.
Several years later while Stoops was still the co-defensive coordinator at Kansas State, he pushed for head coach Bill Snyder to hire Venables as the Wildcats’ next linebackers coach after Jim Leavitt left to accept his first head coaching job at South Florida.
“There’s a million guys that wanted to come that have 10 and 15, 20 years more experience than Brent. I said, ‘Coach, but nobody knows our system more like Brent and nobody is more like us than Brent.’ And coach Snyder and I after talking about it—because I was still going to remain there—we hired him. Coach Snyder did as a full-time linebackers coach. And then I went and a month or two later went and went to Florida. So, I left him and Mike by theirselves there to handle things,” Stoops said.
Venables flourished at Kansas State and then eventually arrived in Norman as part of Stoops’ first staff. Venables served as OU’s linebackers coach and co-defensive coordinator from 1999-03.
Then, after Mike Stoops left to take the head coaching job at Arizona, Venables became the Sooners’ associate head coach, defensive coordinator and linebackers coach from 2004-11.
Mike Stoops was set to return to Oklahoma in 2012 as defensive coordinator, so Venables felt it was the right time to try something new.
Venables left and went to Clemson to take over as the Tigers’ defensive coordinator for head coach Dabo Swinney. In the years since, Venables established himself as one of the highest-paid and most well-respected assistant coaches in college football.
Over the past decade at Clemson, Venables’ defenses produced 26 NFL Draft picks. That list includes eight first-round NFL Draft selections and 15 players that were selected in the NFL Draft’s first 100 picks.
Now, it’s that NFL Draft track record and the national championships Venables helped bring to Clemson that has Sooner Nation salivating about what the future might hold.
“I’m honored and I’m humbled to stand with you and before you today as your next head football coach here at Oklahoma. Again, one of the winningest and storied, tradition-rich programs in the history of college football,” Venables said on Dec. 6 in his introductory press conference.
Venables addressed the upcoming move to the Southeastern Conference and expressed excitement about the opportunity for Oklahoma with greater challenges ahead.
“Now, taking the lead and also taking it through one of the biggest transitions in the history of college football. Taking Oklahoma from the Big 12 to the SEC, you’ve got your guy to take you on this journey. Also, make no mistake about it. Oklahoma has been and always will be the measuring stick in college football,” Venables said.
And then Venables made good on the energy and excitement that Stoops promised he would bring with one final applause-inducing forecast of what lies ahead for Oklahoma.
“We will employ an exciting, fast, explosive and diverse offense combined with a physical, punishing, suffocating defense,” Venables said.
If Venables’ teams live up to that description and Stoops’ expectations, then Oklahoma fans are in for a memorable ride like what Stoops’ 2000 team sent them on in Norman all those many years ago.
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