Here’s a thought.
Sooner Nation should quit wondering what it will take for Brent Venables to keep his job and begin wondering how running backs coach DeMarco Murray and offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh might possibly keep theirs.
Yes, many coaches of great repute might love to be Oklahoma’s next coach, beginning with recently fired Penn State skipper James Franklin and even more recently fired Brian Kelly, no longer at LSU.
Give it another month and who knows who might be available?
But it’s becoming ridiculous.
Because which would you rather have, Brian Kelly’s Baton Rouge past (34-14, 19-10 SEC) or the next four years under the new guy, whoever that guy may be? Or, which would you rather have, James Franklin’s previous three seasons and change at Penn State (37-11, 22-8 Big Ten), or the next guy’s first four.
Those marks are hard to reach.
It’s a bananas bandwagon OU need not jump on given these truths.
• Though the transfer portal makes it easier to get off the mat, what it really does is make everything falling apart much faster much easier, putting a premium on stability as long as that stability doesn’t drive you into the ground, as it did in Stillwater.
• Quick and sudden change also means paying or owing exorbitant buyouts — $76 million to Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher (in 2023); $53.8 million to Kelly; $49 million to Franklin — that could be better spent on talent accumulation — and should that become regulated satisfactorily — facilities and coaches you’re actually paying to coach.
• OU, despite hiccups, is finally trending the right direction and the bottom can fall out faster than a quick resurgence be built by blowing everything up. Even should Venables, let’s say, win only one more game this regular season against the nation’s most difficult schedule, canning him would be both wildly expensive and almost certainly counterproductive.
Perhaps that final truth needs explanation.
Though OU allowed 431 yards and 34 points to Ole Miss, the Sooner defense remains a terrific defense.
Though quarterback John Mateer has been recently maddening, he’s still the quarterback the Sooners had to go get and got and if you want to say that’s only because offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle arrived first, so be it, it still counts, because he’s been a fine hire, too.
OU could have let Venables go after last season, but having kept him and given real progress made offensively, defensively and on special teams, too, the risk is too great to let him go now.
Where Murray and Bedenbaugh are concerned, however, how much grace do they still get?
Begin with Murray.
The last two running backs to be top-of-the-line Sooner caliber were Rhamondre Stevenson and Kennedy Brooks.
Since, not only have Sooner running backs not been in their class, nor has OU been capable of putting its best running backs on the field.
Two years ago Tawee Walker was a better (and far more physical and consistent) runner than Gavin Sawchuk, yet remained stuck in the second spot, prompting his transfer.
He had a fine season at Wisconsin last year, running for almost 80 yards per game and is having a fine one this year at Cincinnati, where he’s turned 90 carries into 466 yards, 5.2 per attempt.
Of course, Sawchuk didn’t pan out and transferred to Florida State.
This year, if you can believe it, the original Sooner depth chart had Jovantae Barnes on top — Jovante Barnes!!! — and Robinson fourth team despite Robinson being the best option a year ago once they finally let him carry the ball against Maine, the ninth game of the season.
Two weeks later, he ran for 107 yards against Alabama.
Back to this season, for no good reason, Robinson received no carries against Michigan, no carries against Auburn and only three against Texas. Yet, given a chance the last two weeks, against South Carolina and Ole Miss, he’s turned 20 attempts into 167 yards.
Also, against Ole Miss, he carried the ball only once the game’s last 10 minutes.
Make it make sense.
Though everybody seems to love him, Murray can’t seem to bring great backs into the fold, or can’t develop them, or can’t keep them and sure as heck can’t get his depth chart right.
Bedenbaugh has long been called one of the best offensive line coaches in the nation, so what about it?
He’s coached three All-Americans: Gabe Ikard (’13), Orlando Brown (’17) and Ben Powers (’18).
His line helped Samaje Perine gain 1,713 rushing yards during an otherwise forgettable 2014 season, when OU went 8-5, closing with a 40-6 loss to Clemson at the Russell Athletic Bowl, prompting Bob Stoops to fire offensive coordinator Josh Heupel.
Mostly, Bedenbaugh’s had a good run in Norman as long as the offense he’s worked within has been run by Lincoln Riley, who knew how to make a line look good, as he did in in 2019, turning Jalen Hurts into a 1,298-yard running back, who happened to throw for almost 4,000 yards and complete almost 70 percent of his passes.
Or was it Riley who had a great run as long as Bedenbaugh ran the line.
It’s possible.
It’s even possible Bedenbaugh’s doing all anybody could with the bodies he must work with now.
But if the line stinks because there’s so little to work with, is that not an indictment, too? Beyond coaching the line, is Bedenbaugh not also responsible, at least in part, for assembling it and, as best he can, keeping it together.
OU should be in the business of putting a top-flight offensive line on the field, not a makeshift one it prays won’t suck.
I’m just a long, long, longtime observer.
But facts are facts.
OU can’t put its best running backs on the field to begin seasons, nor stay with them once they’ve proven themselves.
The Sooners have not been gunning for great offensive lines for three straight seasons, only lines that, should everything fall right, might be good enough, yet aren’t.
It’s all on Venables’ watch, but his ouster would bring chaos, not progress.
A couple of his helpers?
Their exits might help.
This is a well-argued piece, and you make several fair points about staff accountability beneath Brent Venables. Still, it’s hard to ignore that real program stability often requires more than swapping assistants midstream. Venables inherited a roster gutted by the portal and a culture shift after Riley’s exit — the foundation takes time to rebuild. While DeMarco Murray and Bedenbaugh have undeniably underperformed in key areas (especially running back development and O-line consistency), the answer isn’t a coaching carousel every offseason. The key question isn’t whether Venables’ assistants are perfect — it’s whether OU’s leadership has the patience to let a coherent system mature instead of blowing it up the minute progress slows.
I think you’re spot on Clay. Murray and Bedenbaugh need to go, if for no other reason so Arbuckle can put his own stamp on things. I know Arbuckle is young and may not have a Rolodex full of coaches to pull from, but he’s the OC so let him run it like he wants, w/o deferring to the ‘senior’ guys. I know Bedenbaugh has some good recruits lined up but he was super slow on the NIL/transfer portal uptick, and there’s no excusing Murray. While I admire BV’s loyalty, the program comes first.