Brent Venables reveals area he wants to improve as a coach in 2023

Brent Venables had a rough first year at Oklahoma but he revealed where he wanted to get better for the 2023 season. After a 6-7 campaign, many picked Oklahoma to bounce back in a big way this fall and compete for a Big 12 title. But to get there, Venables and the Sooners have to fix the little things.

Venables joined The Number One College Football Show and gave a lengthy answer.

“It’s a million things but it’s about being efficient and sometimes less is more in every way,” Venables said. “But being efficient in all three phases. You’re looking for the inches, you know, that are everywhere in regards to the difference between winning and losing. You lose games by four points, by three points. You lose an overtime game, you lost a seven-point game to the Big 12 champions.

“… Let’s start there, what broke down? And so you’re constantly finding ways to be a better leader from an efficiency standpoint, and then you’re always finding ways to be a better teacher.”

Venables claimed the toughest parts always come before success. Perhaps that’s the recipe for Oklahoma. 

“You know, you fail your way to success,” Venables said. “A lot of people don’t like that, but that’s the truth of the matter. You have to get scarred up, you have to go through it so that you can get to where you want to go. And so, no matter how uncomfortable and sickening it makes you along the way you learn through failure, and being uncomfortable, that’s where the real growth happens. And success is the worst teacher there is. And so we’ve worked really hard at teaching situations to our team where we have learned to, you know, good teams complement each other, not compensate for each other.” 

The Sooners return quarterback Dillon Gabriel in 2023, so they have veteran leadership. That’s someone who can echo Venables’ message. Despite the down year, Venables did work on the recruiting trail. Oklahoma had the No. 7 overall class in the 2023 cycle, per the On3 Industry Ranking.

“And then again, if you put everything back and we got every part of our organization has to be better, if that’s the recruiting, if that game day ops, if that elite recovery, if that’s nutrition, if that’s our dining facility, if that’s soul mission, if that’s the weight room, if that’s elite recovery, certainly the x’s in the O’s, Game Day management, there’s no area that that’s hands off,” Venables said. “We got to get better in every single area. And so for us it’s about being efficient.”