Brent Venables explains where his sideline energy comes from

When Oklahoma hired long-time Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables ahead of the 2022 season, it knew it was getting a coach with a considerable amount of sideline energy.

Venables is a fiery coach and doesn’t bother trying to hide his passion.

“It’s just love for the game. I’m passionate and I wear it on my sleeve,” Venables told On3’s JD PicKell this spring. “I actually wish I had more meekness skills, but I’m just who I’ve always been. I just love what I do.”

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Oklahoma had a bit of an up-and-down season in 2022, not too dissimilar from the bouncing up and down Venables’ sideline energy produced. There were bursts of excellent play, which showed up in wins over ranked Kansas and Oklahoma State squads. And there were some disappointing moments.

The Sooners lost three games in the middle of the season, including a 49-0 disaster against rival Texas.

Through it all, Venables was there coaching the way he always does. Fiery. Passionate. In need of a staffer to keep him in check at times.

“Workout,” Venables said of his ‘get-back’ coach, sporting a massive grin. “A lot of steering going on.”

With spring football in the books, Venables will take his own hands off the steering wheel for a bit. It’ll be up to the strength and conditioning coaches to keep the positive progress rolling forward over the next few months.

Oklahoma growing into its identity

Sideline energy and mannerisms aside, Venables feels pretty good about where his team is at through spring football, ahead of Year 2.

“The belief in what we’re doing was probably the No. 1 thing that was really apparent for me and our staff,” Venables said. “Our players are hungry, they’re eager, they’ve bought into what we’ve asked them to do, our expectations, our standards, how we do what we do and why we do what we do.”

The 2023 season will be a big one for the Sooners, who will exit the Big 12 for the SEC in 2024. That transition will be an interesting one.

First, though, there’s a whole season to play.

Venables was quite pleased with the identity his team seems to be picking up as it continues to transition in the post-Lincoln Riley era.

“The effort and the stick-to-it-ness, their ability to persevere all season was there,” Venables said. “Obviously you want to be rewarded through your hard work with victory and we came up short in five games last year. This game will honor precision and efficiency and toughness and physicality. There’s plenty of things that we have to, going through a season, there’s plenty of things that we have to obviously get better at as coaches and as a football team.

“The best teams that you’ve been on are ones that complement one another, not compensate for one another. So we’ve got to improve in a lot of areas but I love the fight and the investment from our football team.”