OU football coach Brent Venables not hiding frustration with offense. 'That was ugly'
· Yahoo Sports
NORMAN — When Brent Venables walked up to the podium inside Oklahoma football’s Red Room postgame, it wasn’t like the countless times he had stood in front of the microphone.
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Especially after a contest in which his Sooners won.
“All right,” Venables began. “Welp, that was ugly.”
Venables has lost 21 games as OU’s coach. He appeared defeated in his postgame press conference following the Sooners’ loss to South Carolina in 2024. The next day, he fired offensive coordinator Seth Littrell.
Saturday night was different. He was vexed.
Following OU’s road loss to Michigan last weekend, when the offense fell flat despite the Sooners being substantial favorites, the message all week was to get back to work, flip the page and focus on the daunting task in front of them the rest of the way.
Instead, the offense looked no different in its 14-6 win over New Mexico. If anything, it looked worse.
It’s hard to pinpoint a time when Venables came off more disappointed and upset about an offensive performance than he did Saturday night.
At this point, he said there isn’t one thing the offense, led by coordinator Ben Arbuckle, can even hang its hat on.
“We haven’t gotten into a rhythm with really much of anything,” Venables said, “but we’re just too erratic and not consistent enough, not enough rhythm to what we’re doing. We’re our own worst enemy, the worst penalties at the worst times, it seems like. We get the ball with good field position, and then we get a false start, then we get a hold, and next thing you know, we’re punting again.
“Nothing wrong with the opponent making plays, and you’re going to get got; that’s going to be part of football. But getting in our own way, whether it’s discipline or a lack of focus, that’s very discouraging.”
You’d be hard pressed to find Venables more critical of an offensive performance during his entire tenure.
Arbuckle’s unit never found a groove from the start.
On the third play of the game, Mateer threw an interception while throwing back behind his body. He threw another in the second quarter in what looked like a miscommunication with Parker Livingstone.
The Sooners still have a run game problem, too, after using four different backs sporadically. Lloyd Avant had eight carries, Jonathan Hatton Jr. had six, Tory Blaylock had four and Xavier Robinson had two. Collectively, they averaged 2.3 yards per carry.
It also can’t help the offensive flow that star left tackle Michael Fasusi missed his second consecutive game with an injury while Ryan Fodje is playing out of position. Outside of a few nice plays by their tight ends, nothing was doing for the Sooners’ offense for the second consecutive week.
For a fanbase that, in the past decade, has watched two Heisman-winning quarterbacks and grown accustomed to a high-flying offense, the anger finally caught up.
Boos and chants of “Fire Arbuckle” poured throughout Gaylord Family — Oklahoma Memorial Stadium and could be heard from the top deck.
According to SoonerStats, the last time OU won a game while scoring 14 or fewer points at home was against Kansas in 1967.
“There's a lot of things that we have to continue getting better at,” Arbuckle said. “I don't think there's any jumping around it, any skipping around it. We gotta put our head down, nose on the grindstone, go back to work and really figure out what we're really good at, what our identity is going to be.”
With boos inevitably came questions about Arbuckle’s job.
Venables was asked postgame about his confidence in Arbuckle moving forward.
“I’m not going to talk about confidence,” Venables said. “He’s our offensive coordinator. We got a lot of work to do to improve, to get better. We’re going to need to make improvements if we’re going to have a chance to win the games against the teams we’re going to play. We can’t keep playing with a hot stove.”
Venables loved the offense’s response this past week in practice coming off the Michigan loss. He felt the preparation and the energy couldn’t have been better.
Arbuckle concurred.
But there’s clearly a disconnect between practice and games.
“I thought we had our best week of practice since I've been at Oklahoma, Monday through Friday,” Arbuckle said. “We understand that we have to make it happen on game day. Great week of preparation, but it's an expectation that you go out there and you don't have to play perfect, but you’ve got to play well. And I’ve got to call the game well.”
What was also shocking Saturday was how little respect New Mexico’s defense had for OU’s offense.
For nearly the entire first half, coach Jason Eck’s safeties were playing nearly as shallow as his linebackers.
The Lobos dared the Sooners to pass on them.
“Just not respecting us pushing the ball down the field, obviously,” Venables said. “Why else would you do that?”
Once again, OU’s defense saved it as the group didn’t allow a touchdown the entire 60 minutes.
Venables’ defense was more than solid, collecting six sacks and 10 tackles for loss. Defensive tackle David Stone played like a star, while linebacker Owen Heinecke and defensive backs Peyton Bowen and Reggie Powers III flew around and made plays.
And it did it while the offense continued to handicap it and without contributors such as Michael Boganowski, Kip Lewis and Cole Sullivan.
“There's a lot of pressure on those guys, even without a complimenting offense, that's a lot of pressure without that,” Venables said of the defense. “The guys did a really good job, a lot to learn from, I'm proud of the effort, proud of the toughness.”
But Saturday wasn’t really about the defense.
It was about an OU offense that, one week after promising to fix things, offered no evidence that it had.
Three weeks ago, the Sooners were a popular pick to return to the College Football Playoff. There is too much talent on this team — and too much expected of it — for an offense to continue producing like this.
Venables knows it. His reaction Saturday night made that clear.
The Sooners — and Arbuckle — are running out of time to show it.
“I expect more,” Venables said. “We’ve got to be a lot better than that. That can’t be the product, we got a lot of work to do there.”
Colton Sulley covers the Oklahoma Sooners for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Colton? He can be reached at [email protected] or on X/Twitter at @colton_sulley. Support Colton's work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing adigital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU football coach Brent Venables not hiding frustration with offense. 'That was ugly'