As Oklahoma Found Its Identity, Brent Venables Recognized Some Hard to Kill Qualities

One opportunity. One game. One win.

With all apologies to Eminem, Oklahoma has a chance to make the College Football Playoff with a win on Saturday not because they lose themselves in the moment.

It’s because they found themselves.

The Sooners are on the verge of a 10-win regular season and a return to the CFP because they finally discovered and embraced their own identity.

OU and LSU meet at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Owen Field, and if Oklahoma wins, they’re almost a lock to receive an at-large invitation to the 12-team CFP, meaning they’d play a game — likely a home game — in the first round on Dec. 19 or 20.

All they have to do is beat LSU.

According to several lines, the Sooners are 10 1/2-point favorite to do just that.

Now, Brent Venables says, is the time for some serious reflection on how this OU squad overcame some significant obstacles in its second year as a member of the Southeastern Conference — so this team knows who it is and how it got here.

“Doing the things that winning teams do,” Venables said. “You know, taking care of the football, winning the line of scrimmage, eliminating negative plays and playing complimentary football.”

Monday night on his weekly coach’s show, “Sooner Sports Talk With Brent Venables,” the coach spoke about the importance of remembering the fundamentals of the game, but also respecting what it took to get to this point.

All he had to do was point back to Saturday, when the Sooners fought back from an early deficit to turn around a commanding 17-6 victory over Missouri.

“Remember, there's going to be some turbulence on game day when you're playing good people,” Venables said. “But I love the attitude, the response, the fight, the belief, the willingness to punch back consistently throughout the game.

“And so what does that look like? Maybe it's a blocked field goal. It's a third-down stop. It's a great protection in our field goal unit, or a great kick by Tate Sandell, or a fantastic punt by (Grayson) Miller. Or it's a runner for 87 yards.

“We had some self-inflicted plays and penalties. And so what happens? Do the guys go in the tank? Or do they come right back and fight right back get an interception, or get go another three-and-out, or go block a field goal again?”

Those were all winning plays the Sooners delivered against Mizzou. Venables wants to see similar qualities this week against LSU.

The Bayou Bengals are 7-4 overall this season and 3-4 in the SEC — the exact same records as Missouri. Oklahoma (9-2 and 5-2, with a three-game winning streak) is expected to win this game. LSU is coming off a 13-10 home win over Western Kentucky, one in which they had to hold off an upset in the final minutes.

Again, the Sooners must handle success, something of which Venables is all too aware.

“My job is to affirm the players for who they are becoming,” Venables said. “And so you do that not by, ‘Oh, because we're so talented.’ No, it's not that. We actually aren't always the most talented team. It's because of the work. It's the preparation. It’s the toughness, it's togetherness, it's the coachability, it's great self-awareness.

The identity of this ballclub is one of unyielding, unforgiving defense, a special teams unit that delivers key plays at the right time, and an offense that just doesn’t mess everything up.

The last two games against Alabama and Mizzou, the OU offense committed zero turnovers while the defense gathered five combined takeaways.

That’s winning football on any level.

The defense also hasn’t given up anything in the run game, limiting South Carolina (54), Tennessee (63), Alabama (80) and Mizzou (70) below 100 yards and well below their season averages in the last four victories.

“What I'm promoting is 11 hats at the ball,” Venables said, “one pushing of the pile at a time — you know, rip the soul out of your opponent.

“That's what is deflating for a play caller, is deflating for the players that are on the wrong side of it. And it gets the stadium (excited) — you know, people see that. If you're watching the game, you see that, and you applaud that. And that's what straining to win and finishing with great effort looks like.

“And then it becomes infectious, contagious.”

After a strong 5-0 start, the Sooners lost two out of three games to Texas and Ole Miss. Things looked like the season might go sideways for the third time in Venables’ four years at the helm.

Instead, the team finally embraced that identity — domination by the defense and special teams, and the offense capitalizing on those gifts (and not creating more problems) — and OU has won four of its last five games heading into the season finale.

All of which seems to make Venables even more excited.

“We still haven’t played our best four quarters of football yet, which is incredibly exciting under the circumstances,” he said.

He even got another question about the “Hard to Kill” T-shirts the squad unveiled after beating Alabama, and relayed a colorful explanation for the slogan — one that had the locals laughing hysterically.

“My job is to figure out the pulse day-to-day, week-to-week,” he said. “You know, who we're becoming. And these (players) remind me of — you know, you flip the light on the kitchen in the middle of night and — cockroaches are everywhere! You can’t kill ‘em! You're like, getting your shoe trying to kill one — and he won't die! It's like, ‘I got him!’ And he's like, ‘Ugh,’ you know, shakes it off.

“But yeah. No man, you've been around the locker room for 30 years, you know, that's kind of part of who you are.”