Nick Saban advises Brent Venables, Oklahoma defense how to approach Tennessee offense

Brent Venables is known as one of the best defensive minds in college football, dating back to his time as a dominant defensive coordinator at Clemson. With that said, his Oklahoma defense will face a tough challenge this weekend when Josh Heupel and Tennessee come to town.

The Vols lead the nation in scoring offense through the first three games of the season at more than 63 points per game.

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Former Alabama coach and current ESPN analyst Nick Saban joined The Pat McAfee Show on Friday and discussed how Venables and Oklahoma can try to slow Tennessee down.

“I think Oklahoma has a really good defense. I think Brent Venables has a very good defensive scheme,” Nick Saban said. “But I also think that the style of play that Tennessee has, it takes a little different type of approach, because you’re not going to be able to play your normal pace of play, because they’re going to go fast.

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“You’re going to have to make quick decisions. Your players are going to have to get lined up quick. And then they’re going to try to slow you down, clap, don’t snap the ball, see what you’re in, take advantage of what you’re in. So now you need to be able to kill some things on defense to change your defense so they don’t always know exactly what you’re in.”

Brent Venables is known for his exotic blitzes, but Tennessee’s pace on offense could keep Oklahoma from getting to run a lot of the ones it would like to.

Saban added that Tennessee also makes it tough to sub, which leads to players getting tired and coaches not being able to utilize their third-down packages.

“You’ve gotta be prepared not to be able to put a sub-package in on third down, because they go fast on third down. I remember when we played up there a couple of years ago, man. We did all this stuff on third down, changing personnel. They never let us sub at all in the game,” Saban said. “We went through the whole first half. The only time we tried to sub we had too many guys on the field. So now you’ve got to play everything in Nickel, which is how you play first and second down against them.”

There’s no doubt that Brent Venables is one of the best defensive coaches in college football, but there’s also no doubt that his defense will have its hands full on Saturday.

“They create a lot of issues,” Saban said of Tennessee. “But I would assume that Brent has spent a lot of time, before this game week, trying to prepare for this kind of offense.”