Brent Venables praises how Seth Littrell leads Oklahoma offense

Oklahoma had the Big 12’s top offense last year, but now they enter the SEC ahead of the 2024 season and have a new playcaller following the departure of Jeff Lebby. With former offensive analyst Seth Littrell being promoted to offensive coordinator this offseason and taking the reins of a unit that has been consistently dominant in recent history.

The Sooners recently capped off spring practice with their spring game, and after the offense’s Red Team secured the victory, head coach Brent Venables was asked about his new offensive playcaller.

“He’s been great, everything’s been good all spring,” Venables said. “He’s got adjusted quickly like we anticipated and he’s done a variety of things that have helped us continue to move forward, and progress, and get better. A lot of it language wise, trying to simplify some things from a language standpoint.”

Verbiage is typically one of the biggest obstacles with coaching changes, as new coordinators are tasked with teaching players about concepts that they may already know but with different language and terminology. But with Littrell spending last season on Oklahoma’s staff and making stops at six different programs prior to his arrival in Norman, the transition has been running smoothly according to Venables.

“Again, sometimes when you get outside of a system and you gotta go to several places and start completely over and everybody’s new you, you figure out how to be even more efficient. I did it when I left Oklahoma originally in 2012 to go to Clemson and then he’s been able to do it in some different ways and had some really good ideas to help people learn a little more efficiently and whatnot,” Venables explained. “But everything’s been great.”

Littrell spent seven seasons as the head coach at North Texas before joining the Sooners ahead of the 2023 season. As Venables detailed how as an offensive coordinator he’s been able to help the Sooners make strides from the start of the year to the end of spring practices.

“Knowing the different personnel groupings that we’re working with. There’s more than just 11 guys, you’re hopeful that you have 22 guys that you know that you can trust and count on,” Venables said. “But finding the right group of guys and discovering the strengths and where are some areas that you got to get better at. And some of that takes some time but, again, looking for guys from an accountability standpoint, in a leadership standpoint. You’re developing that nonstop.”

Between the Sooners’ offensive personnel and the prowess of their new OC, it will be fascinating to see how Oklahoma’s offense transitions to the SEC following a promising performance in their spring game throughout their depth chart.

“I really like that there’s a whole bunch of guys, and those three groups of guys, that went out there that I think collectively will help us have a chance to be another really explosive offense. And we got a lot of weapons both in the backfield and tied in at receiver, quarterbacks have the ability to run and to pass, and so I really liked the body of work coming out of the spring. Have a great expectation that we’ll be a better version of ourselves when we start in August,” Venables concluded.