Brent Venables on Oklahoma's performance vs. Houston: 'We deserved to lose'

Brent Venables knows that Oklahoma was lucky to escape with a win against Houston on Saturday. The Sooners seemingly did everything they could to give the game away as it came down to a defensive stop on the very last play.

On a day where its offense struggled immensely, failing to score any points at all in the second half, the defense came up big late in the 16-12 victory. Speaking with SEC Network postgame, the OU coach did not mince words on the performance from his team.

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“We certainly deserved to lose as well, but our guys did find a way,” Venables said. “Great job on the defensive play to create the safety. Offense did a really nice job until we lost our mind and didn’t play with the discipline.

“We deserved to lose because we did everything you could possibly do to give somebody a chance to win. But they did find a way to win there. Great job by the D again there on that last drive to make them use the clock and get off the field with a victory.”

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Oklahoma’s offense failed to convert on a number of opportunities created by its defense in the second half. That includes a play in early the fourth quarter where the Sooners forced an interception to take over at the 33-yard line. OU responded to go three-and-out, then missed the field goal attempt and came away with no points.

Oklahoma gave the ball back to Houston with two minutes to go, but thankfully pinned the Cougars at the five-yard line. That set up a chance for the defense to pick up a safety, the only points the Sooners would score the entire second half.

OU almost had the game locked up after that, but a penalty stopped the clock on fourth down and gave the ball back to Houston with 29 seconds left. Once again, it was up to the defense to save the day.

Quarterback Jackson Arnold looked off all day as he finished 19-of-32 passing for 171 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. It didn’t help that the offensive line struggled as well, giving up three sacks and paving the way for only 2.6 yards per carry on the ground.

However, as bad as it was, Venables is thankful his defense managed to get it done down the stretch.

“You gotta respect what it takes to win,” he said. “I felt like we were off from the get go tonight. We’re tackling well and we’re leveraging the ball on defense, letting them hang around. It really went to the exact script that we talked about all week. This is who this team is, Houston. Keep it close, get it into the fourth quarter and get you out of sync. We weren’t in rhythm in any phase of the game tonight.

“But again, you can’t stink that bad and find a way to win a game. Sometimes that’s a sign of you’ve got enough good things going. We had several guys who were unavailable tonight in the pregame or during the game. So proud of the guys that stepped in and stepped up.”

In the end, it’s better to learn the lessons that came from a game like this when you win, and Oklahoma is certainly happy to still be undefeated after the close call with Houston. The Sooners will look to bounce back next week when they face Tulane before entering SEC play the following week.