Muzzling assistants a bad look for Venables and bad omen for the program

Oklahoma football coach Brent Venables talks to his team during fall camp. (SoonerSports.com photo)

If Brent Venables ultimately fails at this head coaching at Oklahoma thing, the biggest reason why is already apparent … though may need some explaining.

He’s too involved.

Or, put more clearly, he’s too intrinsically involved in too many things to optimally run an enterprise as wide ranging as Sooner football, particularly in a day and age, thanks to NIL, the transfer portal and the virtual free agency they’ve created, a serious college football program cannot be micromanaged by one man and, if it could, programs would not be in the business of hiring general managers and creating, named or not, player personnel departments.

Prior to last season, Venables made clear he would be more involved, day to day, down to down, with the Sooner defense.

It turned out to be an improved defense, though something, in Venables’ estimation, continued holding it back, otherwise why say goodbye to Ted Roof in the coordinator’s role and say hello to Zac Alley?

It remains to be seen if Venables brought in a young acolyte in whom to turn the defense over, knowing Alley to be a true believer in the system, or simply because the decision-making’s bound to happen more quickly with an underling unlikely to make a fuss when disagreement occurs.

Everybody seems to think Sooner success will be rooted in defense this season, so perhaps we’ll see.

Another thing is in play this preseason and, yes, it may sound small and even efficient, but it is also dumb, wrong, counterproductive and a precursor to less-than-optimum success.

That is, read all about the Sooners in The Norman Transcript, The Oklahoman, the Tulsa World, several online outlets, whatever you can find, and you know what you won’t find?

You won’t find Bill Bedenbaugh talking about the offensive line, Miguel Chavis talking about the defensive line, Brandon Hall or Jay Valai talking about the secondary, not even Seth Littrell talking about the offense nor Alley talking about the defense.

They’ve been muzzled, and you thought it would take two or three losses for your favorite football team to jump into the bunker.

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