Brent Venables details his message to recruits in the midst of up-and-down season

First-year head coach Brent Venables walked into arguably the trickiest spot of any new head coach this offseason when he took the Oklahoma job, fresh off the sudden departure of Lincoln Riley to USC. After Riley’s departure, several key players bolted. Not only did Venables have to cobble together a working roster for 2022, he’s had to provide a coherent message to recruits in the midst of those trying circumstances.

And after the Sooners dropped three games in the middle of the season, including a 49-0 drubbing at the hands of rival Texas, Venables’ task became even more difficult.

“When you’re selling yourself and you have no track record you’re trying to sell what you’ve accomplished in the past,” Venables explained. “You have some kind of a track record, good or bad, whether it’s coaching a position, it’s coaching a unit, being a part of experiences. So you continue to nurture that.”

Venables was a long-time defensive coordinator at both Oklahoma and Clemson, so he’s got that going for him.

And as the Sooners have gotten back on track in recent weeks, things seem to be steadying. Still, Oklahoma has to get the talent back up to snuff to remain competive at the highest level, particularly with a move to the SEC looming in the next few years.

To that end, Venables is focused on building a sustainable recruiting model.

“Hopefully if you do things right, you’ve had success, you’ve got people that are effective communicators and relationship-driven and hard-working, you’ll be on a really good, strong side of it,” Venables said. “And every once in a while things don’t go your way. I don’t ever lose sleep over somebody that we never had that was supposedly ‘lost.’ If they come here in this program and they go on that field for us and then they leave, then that’s somebody that we ‘lost.'”

Oklahoma crafting message to recruits centered on relationships

The one thing Venables has attempted to do as he’s refined his message to recruits in the middle of a trying Year 1 is emphasize he’ll be there for them.

The ebbs and flows of what happens on the field are part of the building process. Ideally, with the right foundation in place in a couple years, Oklahoma works back toward regularly competing for conference titles and College Football Playoff appearances.

Most of that, though, is vision at the moment. Recruiting is more personal for Venables.

“The biggest thing is you build relationships,” Venables said. “At the end of the day, in the recruiting world, it never stops when a guy commits. People are going to try to recruit people and sometimes guys change their minds. That’s their right. That’s part of the process. You don’t like it when you’re not on the right side of it, but you’re always checking the temperature of the water to see, ‘This guy, I’m not sure about…’

“You’re really doing that from the get-go. ‘This guy committed, but I’m not sure,’ for whatever reason. Maybe it’s where they’re located, family support or not, sometimes you get maybe a parent that’s looking at it maybe more in an agent role as opposed to somebody that’s going to take the baton from us and they’ve got to help a son grow from boyhood to manhood. Some people look at it more from a business standpoint. Some look from a growth and maturation and a football opportunity, too. Lot goes into it. Recruiting is tough and demanding, it’s challenging and you’re dealing with emotions, real emotions and real life-time opportunity.”

Brent Venables looking for undiscovered gems

Another message to recruits Venables had: Work hard, because his Oklahoma staff is looking. Even if you might not think you’re on the radar for the Sooners just yet.

“There’s a bunch of great players. We’ve identified a handful of them,” Venables said. “Challenged the staff a couple weeks ago, some of the best players that have played here, our previous stops, were guys that were under the radar going into their senior year. With diligence and with that kind of a mindset you find some great players that were undervalued.”

At the moment, recruiting is going just fine for Oklahoma. And you’d hardly know Venables is keeping such a close eye out for hidden gems.

The Sooners’ 2023 class currently ranks No. 6 in the On3 Consensus Recruiting Rankings, boasting two five-star commitments and 13 four-stars with an average player rating in the class of 91.52.