Dillon Gabriel reveals how he makes Oklahoma teammates better, what he's focused on in 2023

At Big 12 media days, Oklahoma Sooners head coach Brent Venables had a lot of great things to say about his quarterback, Dillon Gabriel. In particular, he praised Gabriel for making his teammates better.

Later, Gabriel was asked about these comments from his head coach. As he explained, it starts by being comfortable with teammates in different situations.

“I try to tell everyone how can you tell someone to respect you if you can’t take them out and have a lot of fun off the field,” Dillon Gabriel said. “So, I try to have that side of it, but also when I get on the field being able to be demanding toward one another, push one another, and I think just the type of guys we have makes it a lot easier for me.”

2022 was both Brent Venables’ first season as the head coach at Oklahoma and Dillon Gabriel’s first season as the team’s quarterback. Together, they found success offensively that is going to be important to build on.

“Just continue to build off what we had,” Gabriel said. “A lot of guys coming into new opportunities and working their butt off all offseason. So, just excited for them and trying to build off of that from this offseason.”

Despite that offensive success, Oklahoma finished below .500 at 6-7. Because of this, Dillon Gabriel emphasized how important winning is going to be in 2023.

“Just finding a way to get a W. That’s the main thing. When you win a lot of things go away, a lot of things that may be said or whatever, but finding ways to win is exactly what we want to do.”

Brent Venables on his year two goals at Oklahoma

Brent Venables has his own goals at Oklahoma for the 2023 season. One of the biggest is to finish games, and close games in particular, better.

“It’s having the strain and the focus to finish. It all came down to last drives in five out of the seven games,” Venables said. “To finish, and what it means. So I really have seen our team improve since January in every part of our program. But that’s been our mantra all offseason.”

Venables expects to correct those issues and win a lot more in 2023.

“Going into Year 2 we have high expectations. Really excited about this group of guys,” Venables said. “We’re one more year into our systems on both sides of the ball. Setting PRs in the strength and conditioning area. And our culture has taken root. Our expectations, our standards, our players understand the values that we have as a program, which I think our critical to building the program the right way so that it has longevity.”