Brent Venables: Oklahoma Needs to Play 'Pissed' in Bedlam
In this story:
MORGANTOWN, WV — Nothing can salvage Oklahoma’s season at this point.
The Sooners (5-5 overall, 2-5 Big 12) clinched a losing record in conference play with Saturday’s 23-20 loss to West Virginia in Morgantown.
OU’s plethora of problems all popped up to contribute to the losing effort.
There were special teams miscues, costly procedural penalties, third down struggles on both sides of the ball and Oklahoma once again showed the inability to seize momentum of any kind.
For the second time this season, the Sooners had to catch a flight back to Norman fresh off consecutive conference losses.
Losses to Kansas State and TCU were a gut punch, but there was theoretically enough time to turn the season around and potentially get back into the Big 12 race.
But, with just two games left in the season, all OU can play for now is bowl eligibility and an emotional Bedlam win.
Ahead of the contests against Oklahoma State and Texas Tech, Brent Venables is looking for a different kind of response from the team to close out his first season as head coach.
“At some point and time, we've got to be pissed as well and do something about it,” Venables said after the loss on Saturday. “All of us. It ain't okay. We've got a bunch of reasons where we can justify failure. But we've got to get better.
“We've got to coach them better, and we've got to play better. We've to play smarter. We've got to be more efficient. I thought West Virginia did a great job today, but I thought Oklahoma beat Oklahoma today.”
Despite the dip both OU and OSU have taken since last year, Bedlam will again be in prime time on ABC this Saturday night.
With the eyes of the college football world peeking into Norman, offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby said the team has to pick themselves up and dictate how the team wants to close out 2022.
“We’ve got two games left,” he said. “We’ve got Bedlam coming up Saturday at home and we’ve got to make a decision on who we want to be and how we want to finish this things so we’ve got to make a choice collectively to go out, do our job, execute, play clean, and play how we’re capable of playing.
“… I think everybody in that locker room is hurting right now. We’ve got to get them back up, got to get us back up, and find a way to go fight our butt off on Saturday and win Bedlam. I think everybody also understands the importance of this game coming up on Saturday… Our guys will fight and scratch and put us in a position to be able to go win.”
There is no switch Oklahoma can flip to fix its problems.
If it existed, the team would have locked in weeks ago.
But now as everyone works to try and eliminate the mental mistakes that have cost OU dearly this year, the coaching staff will have to fight off any dips in confidence.
Now, more than ever, Venables will look to the leaders in the locker room to ensure everyone stays locked in mentally over the next week.
“That's just what leadership should do,” he said. “Whether that's coaches or the other leaders on the team, you've got to be practical, you've got to be honest and you've got to have accountability.
“We've been talking about finishing the right way for a long time. We'll continue to emphasize those things. The journey is tough. It's challenging. Through disappointment, there's an opportunity to grow and get better. That's what we'll try to do these last two games.”
Leadership has never been questioned publicly by the coaching staff.
Venables has maintained that he’s happy with that aspect of the team despite all of the adversity this year.
Even after OU’s meltdown in Morgantown, defensive coordinator Ted Roof believes the Sooners have the right voices in the locker room to avoid a disastrous four-game losing streak to end the year.
“We have great attitude and great character guys in our locker room,” Roof said. “Since we got here, guys have bought in. I have so much respect and admiration for them and I’m disappointed for them.
“Our leaders in that locker room, we have some football left to play. I have no doubt in my mind they are going to approach it the right way.”
A 7-5 season would be the worst record to close the regular season in Norman since Bob Stoops' first season at OU in 1999, but it’s the best Oklahoma can hope for.
The message from the top has remained the same, so it will ultimately fall on the players to change their fortunes over the next two weeks, and it starts with Bedlam this Saturday
“At some point you gotta get tired of losing,” OU safety Billy Bowman said. “You can’t keep coming out here and keep doing the same things. We’ve only have one choice. Go back to work.
“We only got two games left for sure. So go back to work and we just gotta find a way to make sure we’re on the other side of what we were today.”
Want to join the discussion? Click here to become a member of the AllSooners message board community today!
Sign up for your premium membership to AllSooners.com today, and get access to the entire Fan Nation premium network!
Follow AllSooners on Twitter to stay up to date on all the latest OU news.
Get your OU tickets from SI Tickets HERE.
