2025 Opponent Offseason Storylines: Oklahoma rests its hopes on Brent Venables' ability to put it all together

The Oklahoma Sooners, and Brent Venables, have a lot riding on the 2025 season.

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The Venables era has not lived up to Oklahoma’s high program expectations. Venables is 22-17 as head coach and 12-14 in conference play. While the 2023 season seemed to indicate progress, a regression to 6-7 for Venables’ second losing season in three years has brought unfamiliar angst to the Longhorns’ Red River rival. Yet entering 2025, there seems to be optimism that the pieces in place for Venables can help OU get back on the path toward some of the successes it has enjoyed for most of this century.

Last season’s pieces fell apart, specifically on offense. Seth Littrell‘s offense was a failure not only compared to some of the high flying Sooner units from earlier this decade, but compared to the modern standard for quality offense from contending Power Conference program. OU was No. 53 in offensive SP+, a massive drop from its No. 8 offense in in the same metric 2023. Neither Jackson Arnold nor Michael Hawkins Jr. could do much in an offense failed by both its scheme and its often injured component parts. See the 2024 Red River Shootout.

To address that weakness, Oklahoma imported an offense and has hopes for better health from its receiver corps. Venables tapped into the Washington State offensive pipeline, bringing in offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle and quarterback John Meteer to attempt to right the ship. There’s hope that the wideout group decimated by injuries in 2024 has better luck in 2025 with better quarterback play and a cohesive scheme. Plus, OU brought in five receivers via the portal, added three tight ends, and landed Cal running back Jaydn Ott.

A defense with some good component parts like second-team All-SEC defensive lineman R Mason Thomas, freshman All-American Jayden Jackson, and brothers Peyton and Eli Bowen in the secondary looks to get some help from the offense. OU posted a decent scoring defense mark of 21.5 points per game in 2024, good for No. 29 in the nation. OU was also No. 23 in yards per play allowed, surrendering under 4.94 yards per play.

In SEC games, OU’s defense allowed 21.8 points per game when removing pick-sixes and fumble-sixes from the hapless Sooner offense. OU even scored defensive touchdowns in three games, outscoring Alabama 7-3 thanks to a fumble return versus the Crimson Tide.

Venables also brings in longtime Clemson cohort Wes Goodwin to help coordinate the defense after a conflict of opinion led last year’s defensive coordinator Zac Alley to leave OU for West Virginia. Venables knows defense, and calling plays as a head coach is not an impossible task. A sturdy group that finished No. 17 in defensive SP+ is at this stage the better of the two sides of the ball in Norman, and it’s no stretch to think that defense will be of a similar quality.

All the component parts are there to win more than six games and finish above .500.

The main question therefore is, can Venables put all these component parts together?

That has eluded Venables during his three-year tenure as head coach. In 2021, Venables’ team lost seven of its last 10 games, including a bowl game to a then-rising Florida State. Dillon Gabriel guided Oklahoma to a top 15 finish and 10 wins, but the team squandered its chance at a Big 12 title thanks to losses to Kansas and Oklahoma State.

Then the bottom fell out in 2024, specifically on offense. Venables failed to make a good hire after Jeff Lebby‘s departure, and the offense faltered as a result.

There’s something to be said for bringing in component parts with potential. But putting all those pieces together, and specifically pieces Venables chose to bring to Norman as opposed to Lincoln Riley leftovers, is what has Oklahoma as a program facing a level of uncertainty it is not used to. Questioning whether Venables has the acumen to do it isn’t unreasonable, but maybe that’s part of the reason why OU brought in Jim Nagy to be its general manager.

OU’s schedule will test whether Venables can put it all together. And while sportsbooks aren’t the be-all and end-all of college football, Oklahoma’s 2025 win total in a number of places sits at 6.5.

The Sooners have not experienced back-to-back years with fewer than 10 wins since 1998 and 1999, the last year of John Blake and the first year of Bob Stoops. Standards are as high in Norman as they are anywhere in the country.

Pressure on Venables is high. A fourth-straight season without contending for the conference title may not sit well with the powers that be at Oklahoma. Nor would failing to make the 12-team College Football Playoff. Nor would losing a fourth-straight bowl game.

Venables has brought in component pieces for his program. The Sooners’ success likely rests on his ability to prove he can put all of it together. So far, he’s yet to do that with consistency.

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Does it happen this year?

2025 Opponent Offseason Storylines

• Ohio State: Can Caleb Downs and Jeremiah Smith carry a team?
• San Jose State: SJSU made key retentions not often seen at the G5 level
• UTEP: The Miners have a five-star quarterback?
• Sam Houston: Phil Longo has a lot of issues to deal with
• Florida: There’s a large weight on DJ Lagway’s shoulder