Column: Big 12 Really Didn't Like Oklahoma Coach Brent Venables' Take on 'the Old Big 12'

Oklahoma coach Brent Venables and the Big 12 Conference seem to disagree about the Sooners’ tenure as a member of the league.

Venables said at his weekly press conference Tuesday that playing in the SEC “isn't the old Big 12 days where Oklahoma destroys everybody every single week except for one game a year.”

Venables: "This isn't the old Big 12 days where Oklahoma destroys everybody every single week except one game of the year."
— John E. Hoover 🌮 (@johnehoover) October 14, 2025

The league punched back with a sharply pointed post on Twitter/X.

“Coach Venables lost eight Conference games in his two seasons in the Big 12,” someone posted on the Big 12’s official X account.

Coach Venables lost eight Conference games in his two seasons in the Big 12 https://t.co/O4eLzaJ3lo
— Big 12 Conference (@Big12Conference) October 14, 2025

Proper context for the quote stems from a question for Venables by Tulsa World columnist Berry Tramel, who asked if Venables’ previous assertions that the Southeastern Conference is a “one possession league” means the Sooners need to learn how to win those one-possession games, or play better to avoid them altogether.

“I think that both of those keys are (and) can actually be true,” Venables said. “And you better figure it out in the one-score games.”

In his first season as a head coach in the Big 12, Venables’ team went 0-4 in one-score games against Big 12 opposition, losing 41-34 to Kansas State, 38-35 to Baylor, 23-20 at West Virginia and 51-48 at Texas Tech.

In year two in Norman — OU’s final year in the Big 12 before moving to the SEC — Venables’ Sooners were 3-2 in one-possession games.

Venables’ first two years produced an overall record of 16-10 and a conference mark of 10-8.

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But Venables, who served as Bob Stoops’ co-defensive coordinator or DC/associate head coach from 1999-2011, surely wasn’t referencing 2022 and 2023 when he mentioned the “old days.”

OU ruled the Big 12 for more than 20 years from 2000-2021 like no other college football program has dominated its conference, winning a record 14 league championships and posting a win-loss ledger of 153-33 and a winning percentage of .823.

Since leaving the Big 12, OU went 6-7 last year (2-6 against SEC competition) and is 5-1 so far this year (1-1).

It makes no sense for anyone at the Big 12 to try to downplay Venables’ statement by diminishing Oklahoma’s indisputable stranglehold on the rest of the Big 12 for more than two decades.

For all those years, OU was an exemplary member and a leader within the league — on the field of competition as well as in administrative and policy-making issues. For that entire stretch, Stoops, OU president David Boren and athletic director Joe Castiglione were responsible for more of the league’s athletics success and financial success than any member institution.

Oklahoma Sooners, Bob Stoop — Bob Stoops and the Sooners celebrate Oklahoma's 2010 Big 12 Championship Game victory over Nebraska. | Brett Davis-Imagn Images

Venables’ assertion that the Sooners dominated the Big 12 is undeniable. Nobody else won more than four football conference titles in league history (Texas won its fourth in 2023), and nobody else won 82 percent of their games. That doesn’t even include OU’s 11-1 mark in conference championship games. Again, Venables was Stoops' top lieutenant for the majority of that time.

If Venables was wrong about anything, it was when he said “except for one game,” which he surely meant as the annual Red River Rivalry with Texas.

That’s nice of Venables to consider the Longhorns on OU’s level, but in the “old days of the Big 12,” that isn’t even close to being accurate.

OU under Stoops and Lincoln Riley dominated Texas head-to-head, 16-8, with three historic blowouts.

Sure, Venables is now 1-3 against the Horns and his teams have been obliterated twice and have failed to score even one touchdown in all three defeats.

But for the Big 12 Conference to seemingly try to whitewash over OU’s history as a Big 12 member and suddenly act like Oklahoma football isn’t really all that great — when for two decades OU was the tentpole program for the entire conference — is a gross recollection of history at best, and an immature pot shot at worst, certainly unbefitting a statement from a Power 4 conference’s official social media feed.

The Big 12’s unprompted response is unprofessional, unacademic, unappreciative and sophomoric — frankly, one of the many reasons that Castiglione and the Sooners have long wanted out of the league.