Oklahoma Columnist, by Clay Horning

Oklahoma Columnist, by Clay Horning

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Oklahoma Columnist, by Clay Horning
Oklahoma Columnist, by Clay Horning
Finally, Venables with some answers, sort of
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Finally, Venables with some answers, sort of

The Sooner coach claims to have "a very clear vision" why the bottom's dropped out of his team, which is at least slightly better than the same old empty words

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Clay Horning
Oct 12, 2022
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Oklahoma Columnist, by Clay Horning
Oklahoma Columnist, by Clay Horning
Finally, Venables with some answers, sort of
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Oklahoma coach Brent Venables, center, leaves the field with players Justin Harrington (37) and Jacob Sexton (76) after losing 49-0 to Texas last Saturday. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Given the day-before performance of his coordinators, Ted Roof and Jeff Lebby, the bar was low for Sooner football coach Brent Venables on Tuesday.

One day earlier, Roof had offered nothing new, other than to praise the commitment and leadership of a defense that’s become the Big 12’s worst, allowing  1,762 yards from scrimmage against Kansas State, TCU and Texas, while Lebby — not making this up — said, yeah, not opening up the offense “at all,” down 28-0 coming out of the Cotton Bowl halftime locker room might have been a mistake; rejected the idea of bringing a quarterback off the bench who may not have practiced well no matter how horrible the performance of the quarterback on the field; before telling the world that if Dillon Gabriel returns to action, Oklahoma would be shelving the Wildcat package, despite it being the one thing that worked against the Longhorns.

So, of course, Venables cleared the bar.

He let us know he’s living in the real world, too.

He said, among the things the staff’s trying to get through to players is, “there’s a lot of people paying attention to all of us right now and how we’re going to respond moving forward,” and here we thought college football teams live in bunkers, from whence they take on the world.

Refreshing.

He said, “The criticism that’s taking place is well deserved, that’s how I look at it.”

He even said, “This is the week that we start to tweak our schedule … maybe it’s a week or so too late, I don’t know. I wouldn’t use that as an excuse, you know [but] we got destroyed two straight weeks and we’re missing wide open guys and not tackling people.”

All of that came in the space of a minute and about two minutes later, he finally said this:

Oklahoma Columnist is a reader-supported venture. Free and paid versions are available. The best way to support this project is by taking out a paid subscription for $6/month, even less if you purchase the whole year. Thanks for reading — Clay

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