Now that OU softball has completed their National Championship season and OU baseball had a tremendous season just fall short in Omaha, it’s time to get ready for Oklahoma Sooner football and the beginning of the Brent Venables era to take the reins and lead another Sooner unit to a great season.
The upcoming season feels a bit different than in years past. For the past couple of years, the Sooners have been in the discussion of having a Heisman candidate and being a championship contender. This summer, there isn’t any talk by the national media on either one of these topics. This Sooner squad enters the upcoming season with not only a large turnover of athletes on the field and a much-publicized turnover of the coaching staff, but also taken lightly by many in the media.
One of the dynamics of college sports is the guarantee that every season will bring a change in the athletes on the field. The turnover of graduating classes, injury, early draft entry, the highly used NCAA Transfer Portal, etc. has guaranteed that fans will see new faces every year. Add an entire coaching staff change to the mix and there will be an unknown factor leading up to the season.
The unknown factor and mystery of this staff and athletes are what I believe will make this new Sooner team dangerous. New Head Coach Venables is already known as a great defensive mind with a proven track record of nationally ranked defenses. Defensive Coordinators Ted Roof, Todd Bates (Co-coordinator), and Jay Valai (Co-coordinator) are expected to work with Coach Venables to bring an intensity back to the defensive unit that was deemed non-existent for most of the time under the previous staff. Sooner Nation should expect a defense that can not only win games but also shut down the opponent; a component of the game plan that hasn’t been seen since the Bob Stoops years.
On offense, the Sooners have Jeff Lebby calling the plays. Coach Lebby had an overall 6th-ranked offense with Ole Miss in 2021. His offense was ranked well above the supposed offensive genius that departed OU. The offensive line still has one of the best coaches in the business returning in Coach Bedenbaugh along with other former Sooner players/coaches like Cale Gundy, DeMarco Murray, and Joe Jon Finley. Possibly one of the most impactful changes to the coaching staff is the return of Strength and Conditioning Coach Jerry Schmidt, which turns this organization from the previously ran country club back into a staff in the business of building monsters. There should be a noticeable difference from the conditioning of the team last year to the one that will be playing this year.
So now the reins to Sooner football are in the hands of Coach Venables, his staff, and all the athletes that are lucky enough to wear the OU emblem. Hopes are high around Sooner Nation that this team will return to dominance. The rest of the nation will find out soon enough that this Sooners football organization is once again back on track to contend for a championship like their other fellow teams representing this great university.
Boomer Sooner!