Brent Venables on Oklahoma's struggles: Sometimes we need to get out of our own way

It’s been an up-and-down start for Brent Venables at Oklahoma. The Sooners started the year with a three-game winning streak followed by a three-game losing streak, which ended Oct. 15 against Kansas.

With the bye week in the rear-view mirror, Venables hopes his team can take a leap starting with this week’s game against Iowa State. However, he made it clear the Sooners can’t beat themselves like they did early on against the Jayhawks.

Oklahoma committed three early turnovers, which kept Kansas in the game early. Although the Sooners pulled away, Venables said the players have to avoid beating themselves. That was a focal point during the off week.

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“Had those three turnovers. You can’t do that,” Venables said. “That was a game [that] was a lot more uncomfortable at the end because of that. We allowed some short fields, we responded to one turnover, we got a three-and-out right away and two others and we let them score. That’s a mentality. You’ve got to have a first responder type of mentality. It don’t matter, man. You just get in there and you get the job done, and we didn’t do that. We’ve got to learn and grow from that.

“People are going to make plays on you. You’ve got to make them earn it. … At times we did and at times, we didn’t. Don’t make it harder than it has to be. Sometimes, we’ve got to learn how to get out of our own way. That’s what I would say. Those are the things that we focused on here last week and certainly the week before and moving forward is to have the kind of finish that, again, I know this team’s capable of having.”

Despite the bumpy start to the season, Venables garnered some praise from this week’s opposing coach. Iowa State headman Matt Campbell shared his thoughts on the job Venables is doing in his first year as a head coach.

“I think one of the things that stand out to me about him, more than anything, is what he stands for,” Campbell said. “I think there are some coaches in this profession that are in it for the right reasons and they care about kids. That want to see things done the right way and that is what has really impressed me about him getting to know Coach Venables.

“A guy that really cares about kids, getting to put them in the best position to be successful. But at the root of it, he really wants young people to have success and cares about them as young people. I think he’s great for our profession for sure.”