OU notes: Venables says ‘bittersweet’ about Turnipseed departure

ARLINGTON, Texas – There were a lot of questions to OU head coach Brent Venables at Big 12 media days about how the Sooners are going to look different for the 2023 season.

Most of them were about things happening on the field. But the program had a big shakeup recently with the departure of Thad Turnipseed, who had been viewed as Venables’ right-hand and big picture guy. Especially when it came to the facilities.

“It’s bittersweet. Incredibly excited for Thad. This is something that was just on his spirit,” said Venables on Thursday afternoon at AT&T Stadium. “His son-in-law just got hired as the strength coach at Anderson University right there just outside of Clemson. He has his first grandbaby on the way. This is a great situation for he and his family to be a part of that.”

Turnipseed has been credited to being able to help programs like Alabama under Nick Saban. And then again with Dabo Swinney at Clemson.

OU fans were hoping for more of the same when he decided to come to Norman with Venables following the 2021 season.

It might have been a sudden departure, but Venables said Turnipseed’s mission was accomplished in the less than two years Turnipseed was at OU.

“Thad is a different bird. People say how did he come to Oklahoma? I don’t know how it happened. He was just bored at Clemson, wanted a new challenge. He made us better in every part of our program. He’s always a thinker. His focus is always about being the best in everything. He made our facility better, the one we’re in currently. We doubled our size of the staff, had to have a place to put them.

“He kicked out walls and created a War Room. Enhanced our recruiting operations. We have an in-house dining room now. He created SOUL Mission and elite recovery, two areas we didn’t have anything. He created the space for those things and oversaw those projects.”

OU building competitive depth, stamina

Venables once again brought the numbers to Big 12 media days. The numbers this time around focused about the guys in their first or second year in the program.

He said there are 123 players in the program with 97 of them fitting that criteria.

“We’ve had tremendous turnover, like a lot of people in this day and age of college football. Like many people, there’s been tremendous roster turnover,” Venables said. “We desire a roster of stability and consistency. I think that’s what lends to success and sustainability.

“It goes without saying, we went 6-7 last year and fell well below our expectations and our standards at Oklahoma, but man, we learned and grew a lot as a football program. In five of the seven losses, it goes down to the last minute, two minutes of the game in the fourth quarter with a chance to win.”

The goal, then, is to build the competitive depth in all position rooms with 40 new scholarship players and 17 transfers.

“Really believe that because of the competitive depth we’ll have a little bit stronger fourth quarter output on both sides of the ball, a quarter of football where we performed very poorly last year, which led to five one-score losses for us,” he said.

Experience matters defensively

There’s no other way around it. OU’s defense wasn’t up to par, wasn’t up to the Venables standard. First and foremost, that has to change.

“I believe we’ll be better because of the returning experience,” Venables said. “We’ll be better fundamentally. We’ll be better with our aggressiveness. Be better with our timing and our precision and our physicality as a result of some returning experience.

“The competitive depth will lead to better competitive stamina.”

Venables’ take on Bedlam: ‘I’d love to play the game’

It comes with the territory at media days as both Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy and Venables were asked about Bedlam this season. Everybody wondering when will the next one happen.

Gundy blamed OU for the series coming to at least a temporary end. Venables went a different direction Thursday.

“Look, I’m not in control of whether or not we play Oklahoma State,” Venables said. “I love college football. I love the traditions of the game, love rivalry games.

“Oklahoma and Oklahoma State have played for over 100 years, and Oklahoma has been dang good in those games for a long time. “But whether or not we play them in the future, nobody is asking me what I think. If they do ask me, I’ll tell them what I think. I’d love to play the game. But we’re going to play the schedule that they put in front of us.”