Brent Venables: 'We certainly got exposed'

Brent Venables did not mince his words following Oklahoma‘s 41-34 loss to Kansas State on Saturday. The Sooners defense looked the worst it has all season, surrendering 382 total yards and five touchdowns to Wildcats quarterback Adrian Martinez.

In the postgame press conference Saturday evening, Venables took responsibility for the poor performance, saying the Wildcats revealed that the OU defense still has a long way to go.

“We’ve got work to do obviously,” he said. “Pressure exposes you, reveals who you are. Both good and bad. And tonight, we certainly got exposed. Again, that starts with us as coaches putting our guys in a better position to be successful. The fundamentals, the technique, the attitude, the edge — all of those things to go along with it. We didn’t do much good on defense.”

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K-State won the battle up front, averaging 5.6 yards per carry to finish with 275 yards rushing as a team — the most OU has allowed all season by more than 100. Four of Martinez’s five total touchdowns came on the ground, and both he (148) and running back Deuce Vaughn (116) surpassed 100 yards rushing.

The Wildcats finished with nine running plays that went for 10 yards or more, including a 55-yard scramble from Martinez that set up K-State’s final touchdown of the evening. His elusiveness was on full display all evening as Oklahoma failed to record a single sack.

“We did a poor job,” Venables said. “They blocked us up front and we did a poor job. We got stuck on blocks. You gotta stay in front of ’em. You gotta counter at ball depth. We did a horrendous job of caging (Martinez). You’ve got a certain technique that you do against a quarterback like that and we did a really poor job of caging him.

“Then on our pressures, they blocked us. They blocked the heck out of us. Then their designed quarterback run game, we got ran through. We misfit things or we just weren’t physical at the point of attack. Constantly tonight you saw the line of scrimmage going the wrong way or at the point of attack falling the wrong way. There was a few plays that were good, but few and far between.”

Saturday’s performance against Kansas State stung for Brent Venables, but he knows the Sooners can be better going forward. Oklahoma will get its chance to bounce back against TCU at 11 a.m. CT on Saturday in Fort Worth.