To Brent Venables’ credit, when things don’t go well, he’s inward-looking. As the Sooners wrapped up their first season under Venables with their 51-48 loss to Texas Tech, he took responsibility for Oklahoma’s shortcomings.
“It goes back to coaching,” Venables said in his postgame press conference. “I think that’s where it starts. We have moments where we have great discipline and moments where we’re not. We’re just very inconsistent. And, to me, it goes back to coaching. So, that’s where it starts. And then players got to decide they’re gonna in those moments of pressure. We’ve got to be, have the kind of discipline that you’ve got to have to execute and to win. It’s a game of execution, and it’s a game of, again, discipline. So, obviously, we’ve got to do a better job coaching.”
The Sooners struggled again on the defensive side of the football. They allowed Texas Tech to score the second-most points they had all season. Only Murray State allowed more points to Texas Tech (63) than the Oklahoma Sooners did on Saturday night. Not great company.
Only one other team had allowed the Red Raiders to put up 48 points in regulation this season; West Virginia.
Tech was averaging 30.25 points per game in Big 12 play. This was a team that was 2-4 in conference play before their three-game win streak over Kansas, Iowa State, and Oklahoma to close out the regular season.
Again. Not great company.
This is who Oklahoma is in 2022. Not a good football team.
They have their moments or quarters when they look like they can hang with anyone and then have stretches where they look like the worst team in the Big 12. And one could make an argument that aside from Iowa State, the Sooners might be the worst team in the Big 12.
The defense let them down again on Saturday night in Lubbock. Brent Venables bread and butter. The thing his reputation is built upon has a lot of work to do and not simply from a talent acquisition or development standpoint.
Talent matters, and the Oklahoma Sooners need to upgrade on that front. But unless there’s development that takes place, both on the mental and physical aspects of the game, we may be in for more of the same in 2023.
It was a rough first season for Brent Venables and his staff in Norman. He’ll learn from it and come back better next year. By no means does one season make a tenure or a career, but it’s hard to look at 6-6 as anything other than a disappointment.
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