CBS Sports Big 12 Hot Seat Ratings: ‘Pressure is mounting’ for Brent Venables

In their updated hot seat rating for the 2023 season, CBS Sports believes “pressure is mounting” for Oklahoma’s Brent Venables.

Coming out of a 2022 season where the Oklahoma Sooners had their first losing season since 1998 with one of the worst defenses in the team’s history, it’s not unreasonable to have questions about the direction of the program.

At the same time, it’s only been one year, and we haven’t seen Venables’ recruiting classes take the field and play significant snaps yet. The team may not have much success to speak about on the field yet, but the coaching staff has done a tremendous job off of it on the recruiting trail.

They’ve put together two top 10 classes, and with the way things are shaping up, the Sooners are looking at a third straight top 10 class in the 2024 cycle.

Ahead of the 2023 season, CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd took a look at every head coach in the FBS and determined where they stood on his “hot seat rating system.”

It’s a system that rates coaches from 0-5. “Zero” represents coaches that are untouchable, like Nick Saban or Kirby Smart. “Five” represents coaches that are in must-win mode heading into 2023.

Here’s a look at where the 14 Big 12 coaches stand heading into 2023. We also included where each coach ranked in CBS Sports’ head coach rankings in the Big 12 and overall and their career winning percentages.