Brent Venables weighs in on the lessons learned in Saturday night loss to Kansas State

The Oklahoma Sooners came up short in their home Big 12 opener against Kansas State, and head coach Brent Venables did not mince his words when it came to evaluating his team’s play. During a recent press conference, Venables weighed in on the lessons learned in Saturday night’s loss to Kansas State.

“What I saw was guys afraid to make mistakes. We played on our heels and weren’t physical at the point of attack,” said Venables. “We haven’t been that way, but that’s what I saw. I saw guys pressing, trying to do a little bit too much. I didn’t think we played very well, just having situational awareness; we didn’t do a great job of that.”

The Sooners’ defense could do very little to stop the Wildcats’ offense. Kansas State went blow-for-blow with Oklahoma’s defense and won, primarily on the ground. Kansas State ended the game with 275 rushing yards and won the battle of time of possession by nearly nine minutes, 33:46-24:56.

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The reporter who asked the question framed it with one of Alabama head coach Nick Saban’s infamous sayings, suggesting that the Sooners ate the ‘rat poison.’ And Venables was not having any of that.

“Again, there’s a level of anticipation when you know the situation. I just didn’t think we put it all together. For whatever reason, we didn’t do that. I don’t know about rat poison. Interesting term, but handling success is a very difficult thing for everybody. I’ve always taken tremendous pride in being anti-success, patting everybody on the back. We worked hard at that last week. I’m not sure whether or not that had anything to do with it or not. That’s not what I saw on the field. I saw bad football at times. And I saw a good football team on the other side of the ball that played with good discipline, precision, physicality — all the basics.”

Oklahoma might have came up short Saturday, but Venables does not see a reason to press the panic button. For him, his team played poorly and not up to his expectations and was still very much in the game late with a chance to win. There are no silver linings when it comes to college football, especially with the significance of every game. But Venables has liked what he’s seen from his team early on.

“There’s no magic formula for it. We did a poor job getting our guys ready to play. Obviously, we didn’t have the discipline to play well at the right times; whether we’re missing open receivers or, again, the procedural issues. That has a cumulative effect in scoring and taking scoring opportunities off the table. As bad as we played, it was a one-score game. I don’t look for the good in the bad, but there’s some there. And again, I’ve seen enough good through the first quarter of the season to believe in these guys. In the way these guys focused, their hunger, edge, and humility that they showed through a loss is what you want to see.”

Sooners must shake off that home defeat quickly as they get ready for their next matchup against the TCU Horned Frogs. Venables squad will head to the Dallas Fort Worth area to take on Sonny Dykes 3-0 TCU squad on Saturday.