So, Tuesday at his weekly press conference, Brent Venables sounded great.
He made an unfortunate remark about no longer being in the Big 12 where only one game — Texas — could stunt your season, but I give him grace because even though it was only really true in 2000, ’03, ’04 and ’08, the Sooners were so good over Bob Stoops’ first 10 seasons, Venables along for the ride, it must have have felt that way.
I covered those teams and it felt that way.
Otherwise, like he almost always does, he sounded great.
He said the leadership John Mateer’s shown since failing against Texas has only made him respect the Sooner quarterback more.
He said players were taking real accountability, didn’t have to be prodded to realize their mistakes, didn’t have to be convinced to put in the personal time being a championship program requires and you have to believe him because he’s been saying it all season.
Indeed, it’s one reason the space between the Sooners and Longhorns appeared so impossible, because how could Venables be so wrong for so long?
Good chance, he wasn’t.
His team, perhaps distracted by its quarterback’s health, perhaps distracted by its quarterback’s ineptitude once the game began, just wasn’t the same.
It’s a theory.
He also told a whale of a tale about redshirt sophomore defensive end Taylor Wein, detailing how we went from nobody to somebody in the spring and summer and has just kept going since.
“I left last night and he’s up in the building and we’re walking out at virtually the exact same time,” Venables said. “I come back in the morning and there he is.”
You can watch the entire press conference here and if you move up to 29:20, you can go right to Venables talking about Wein.
Enjoy.
More important, OU is at South Carolina on Saturday, kicking off at 11:45 a.m. on the SEC Network, and if the good things Venables continues to say about his team are really true, we ought to see a very different Sooner team in Columbia than we saw in Dallas.
Good vibes aside, here would be four on-the-field things that could help OU, a 5-point favorite, get back in the win column.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Oklahoma Columnist, by Clay Horning to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.