Steve Sarkisian's Texas Longhorn offense vs Brent Venables' Oklahoma Sooner defense

The heavyweight matchup in the current iteration of the Red River Shootout between Texas and Oklahoma is unquestionably Steve Sarkisian‘s Longhorn offense going against Brent Venables‘ Sooner defense.

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Both coaches were National Championship-winning coordinators at their previous jobs. In one instance, Venables secured a National Championship by winning head-to-head against Sarkisian in the 2017 College Football Playoff National Championship. Sark was with Alabama at the time, initially he was serving an analyst but was promoted to coordinator the week before the game after head coach Nick Saban fired previous coordinator Lane Kiffin following a lackluster showing in the semi-final against the Pete Kwiatkowski-coordinated Washington Husky defense.

In three head-to-head matchups, Venables has the edge over Sark 2-1 in the win-loss column. However, Venables has held a Sark offense under 30 points just once and his two wins were both narrow and achieved by his offense on the game’s final possession. On the other hand Sark’s sole win was a blowout in 2022 over a rebuilding Oklahoma defense with no quarterback to assist them and the 2023 Sooner win came with a half dozen big plays on defense. It’s safe to say they’ve been evenly matched.

Overall this coaching rivalry is a lot younger than the program rivalry without much to differentiate one coach over the other. That could begin to change in this 2024 battle. This is Sarks’ most potent Texas offense to date and Venables can say the same for the quality of his Oklahoma defense if counting since he became head coach (Venables coached some other great Sooner defenses as a coordinator in the 2000s). Which unit holds the edge in 2024?

The stakes of the matchup

Texas has a major advantage in this game overall in the fact they are bringing FEI’s 5th ranked offense but also the 7th ranked defense whereas Oklahoma has FEI’s 47th ranked offense and 11th ranked defense. Venables does not have an offense to match his defense but Sark absolutely has a defense to pair with his own offense.

Venables could theoretically dominate the direct matchup between his own defense and Sark’s offense but still lose the game if Kwiatkowski’s Texas defense wreaks even more havoc on the Seth Littrell Sooner offense. This game also has a tendency to include big special teams plays which impact games more than on a typical college football Saturday. The atmosphere in the Cotton Bowl is electric and you can feel the wild swings in emotion and energy through your television set. If you’re in the stands, the game is often a four-hour heart attack.

Most of the plausible Sooner paths to victory in this game include an outstanding defensive performance that limit how many points OU’s offense has to produce and aids them with turnovers. An Oklahoma turnover in this game which takes points off the board for Texas is great, but potentially insufficient. The Sooners may need the defense to hand their offense the ball in scoring position or finish the job themselves with a fumble return or pick-six interception.

It may be unfair to consider this game’s winner on the “Sark the play-caller vs Venables the defensive guru” scorecard rather than just the “head coach vs head coach” tally but in any event, winning this matchup is Oklahoma’s best hope for victory.

The nature of the matchup

Venables has a distinctive style of calling defenses that stands out in the world of college football. In his bag is a large supply of zone blitzes which are very difficult for a quarterback to process live. Overall Venables is a big believer in “pattern reading,” as opposed to “pattern matching” coverage. Meaning, his defenders drop back and read the route patterns to tell them where to be but they maintain some depth and some eyes on the quarterback. They’re not converting to man coverage, they just play good zone.

The Sooners can be had on underneath passes as a consequence of this technique, but it’s very difficult to beat them down the field. In the exchange of underneath completions for sacks, tackles for loss, and turnovers these pressures produce…the Sooners tend to come out ahead like a quick change artist.

Sark’s style on offense is generally to create shots over the top on post routes, while the Quinn Ewers’ era Longhorns have really lived on the intermediate throws in the space created under the post routes. In last year’s matchup, Venables leaned more into his single-high coverages to ensure he had someone over the top to stop the post route. This lead to Ewers going 31-37 overall and 26-28 passing after a shaky start but because Texas couldn’t convert in the red zone and committed three turnovers, the Sooners survived.

In a similar vein, Jonathon Brooks ran the ball 22 times for 129 yards at 5.9 ypc with a touchdown but Oklahoma inflicted 10 tackles for loss. The math didn’t add up for Texas.

OU’s strengths and weaknesses are similar to 2023 but both are a bit more pronounced. The Sooners’ capacity for pressure from the Edges and linebackers has improved, the safeties are even more effectively filling behind them, and the cornerbacks are iffier trying to hold up in coverage 1-on-1. There are two ways for Texas to come out ahead in this rematch, one is to convert red zone opportunities into points and the other is to land bigger plays outside against the Sooner cornerbacks.

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If Sark solves the Venables zone-blitzing defense with big plays or finds more points in the red zone he’ll win the matchup and the game.