Brent Venables Has Leaned on Faith, Belief in Oklahoma's Leaders After a 'Bad Day' in Dallas

COLUMN

The Oklahoma-Texas outcome is huge every year. Massive. Colossal.

But as every coach who’s ever led his team down the tunnel at Cotton Bowl Stadium — and then trudged back up the same hot, smelly ramp in defeat — knows all too well, the Red River Rivalry isn’t everything.

Back on Oct. 11, after absorbing another loss in Dallas thanks to an anemic offense and a defense that couldn’t get a third-down stop and special teams that gave up a shocking 75-yard touchdown, OU coach Brent Venables summed it up as well as any of his predecessors could have:

“Today was a bad day,” he said to open his postgame remarks, “and we still have a really good football team.”

Just six weeks later, the world has seen incontrovertible evidence that, even in the face of another tough defeat, Venables’ assessment was spot-on.

OU even took another loss after that bad day in Big D, falling at home to Mississippi two weeks later.

But as Venables offered at the midway point of the season, there was a lot of football still to be played in 2025.

I was fortunate to get the first question at that postgame press conference after the Sooners lost to Texas, and I asked about the stunning defensive breakdowns that allowed a mediocre Longhorn offense to escape Dallas after just a handful of winning plays.

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I was also fortunate to get one of the last questions that day, and I used it to ask Venables specifically about how important the leadership on this team would be moving forward into the second half of the season.

“It’s everything,” he said. “It’s the mark of a true competitor. You find out about people when things aren’t going well. I have incredible faith and confidence and belief in every one of those guys. I know who they are. It stinks that it’s through a loss that you have to find these things out. I know who these guys are. They’ll respond the right way.”

Again, Venables’ assessment was a bull’s-eye.

While the loss to Ole Miss was a setback, the Sooners have been unpredictably excellent in road games since coming home from Dallas.

They dominated South Carolina, they shocked Tennessee, and they confounded Alabama — all difficult venues for road teams, each its own SEC stronghold.

And here’s OU, a conference newcomer, breaking down one SEC fortress after another, hardened by the callouses of their Red River failure, forged into an almost unbreakable spear thrust deep into the heart of Dixie, standing at the gates of playoff glory.

But with two games left in the 2025 regular season, the No. 8-ranked Sooners (8-2) are not indestructible. They’re not imperishable. Not unbreakable. This team remains flawed, and No. 22 Missouri (7-3), a 9 1/2-point underdog, will try to find those flaws, expose them and use them to score an upset that will rearrange all College Football Playoff projections.

But if Oklahoma can slow the charge of Mizzou running back Ahmad Hardy and withstand the potential return of starting quarterback Beau Pribula from a dislocated ankle and not succumb offensively to one of college football’s most aggressive defenses, then those scars from October should continue to serve the Sooners well.

“I think we have a lot of tough guys, a lot of mature men, that are OK with challenge, and that’s hard to find,” OU quarterback John Mateer said Monday. “There’s a lot of people who just shy away from it, and we all embrace it. It’s a lot of fun when we do it together.”

This OU squad is thriving now thanks to Venables, his coaching staff and a total of 36 players who have been in college for at least four years.

Venables knew this in the aftermath of the Texas loss. He wasn’t going out on some limb, making some wild prediction. He felt the Sooners could come back strong. Now, with two games left, Team 131 can reap the rewards of his faith — but only if they stay the course.

“We have everything in front of us,” offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle said Tuesday. “We have everything in front of us, and we get the opportunity to go play our best brand of football. That takes all of us. It takes all the coaches, it takes all the players. We have to go out there, we have to practice our butt off. We have to be detailed, discipline to the detail. Because ultimately, we’ve got 11 days to go do something really special. And we have everything we want in front of us. And that’s really been the message.”

It’s the same message Venables had back on Oct. 11 about the strength of his team’s leadership and how far they could carry OU this season. There was optimism for what this team could achieve — even when bowed, even amid another acrid, smoldering Dallas defeat.

It’s nearly late November now, but Venables’ message from six weeks ago can stand in for what he might tell them this week before kicking off against the Tigers.

“Remind them we still have a heck of a team,” Venables said then. “Going in, we had a heck of a team that had done a good job of improving as the season has gone on. Through all the different challenges of a season, through defeat, you learn a lot about yourself. Get better from it. I believe in these guys. I hurt for them. I know how much they hurt and how much they invested into this moment. You have to be able to carry that weight, the weight that goes with it.

“When you go into the locker room, that comes with it. Take some of the bad with the good. Some of these toughest moments and challenges, if we are who I know and believe we are, we’ll respond the right way. Learn from some of the mistakes that we made today. Have to learn it through a loss, which is tough. These guys are very invested. I know how we’ll respond. We have incredible, strong leadership in the locker room. Got a good group of leaders, coaches. This is a team that still believes, a team that is still together. Without question, guys that are ready to respond.”