DALLAS — Brent Venables turned to a familiar face for advice on life in the SEC.
Notable media member (and coaching legend) Nick Saban outlined the real secret of the conference grind for Venables as he enters his third year in Norman.
“Talking to Coach Saban several weeks ago in just casual conversation, the ability to sustain emotionally and physically the grind of the season is what the challenge fo the SEC is going to bring,” Venables said at SEC Media Days on Tuesday.
Oklahoma’s 2024 schedule offers no help.
OU’s first game in the SEC, a home tilt against Tennessee, leads into a trip to Auburn to take on one of the most difficult atmospheres in the conference.
A bye week after that turns into Texas.
The Missouri trip in November leads to another bye week, which then makes way for Alabama and traveling to LSU in back-to-back weeks.
The grind won’t just be physical for the Sooners.
Oklahoma will have to be up for every game this season, which is something Venables candidly said was missing in the back half of 2023.
“A year ago we lost — through seven weeks we were the number one team in the country in turnover margin,” Venables said. “You know, big win against Texas and I don’t know what we were ranked, we were probably in the top 10, and I didn’t feel like we handled success very well. Starting with me.”
Venables’ defense, which stood tall in massive spots to knock off Texas 34-30, struggled to get stops against UCF in OU’s 31-29 victory over the Knights following the bye week.
Then the offense turned the ball over a combined six times in the losses to Kansas and Oklahoma Sate before needing a Billy Bowman pick six to escape Provo with a 31-24 win over BYU, though Dillon Gabriel was knocked out of the game at halftime.
“We lost two one-score games on the road against good teams and we had six turnovers in two games,” Venables said. “Again, we led the nation going into those games in not turning the ball over and we didn’t take care of the ball and the game will just punish you when you do that. All the little things matter.”
The lapses in focus came with a veteran starting quarterback at the helm in 2023.
That won’t be the case this year.
Jackson Arnold flashed all the arm talent that earned him a 5-star recruiting ranking against Arizona in the Alamo Bowl, but he also turned the ball over four times.
There are no guarantees that Oklahoma’s rebuilt offensive line will give him enough time to make sound decisions with the football as a first-year starter, especially as the defensive fronts get better in the SEC.
OU has five teams on its schedule — Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Ole Miss and LSU — that finished in the top 15 of last year’s final CFP Rankings.
If Venables is to guide the Sooners back to the playoff there is no margin for error, even if the field has expanded from four teams to 12.
Oklahoma can’t ride high off any conference win in 2024, and both sides of the football will have to continue to make strides throughout the season to survive.
And Venables is keenly aware of that with fall camp on the horizon.
“Ultimately our identity is going to be defined by the work that we do and through the season that we endure and there are going to be a lot of challenges along the way,” Venables said. “That’s what I know.”
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