Everything Oklahoma's Brent Venables Told ESPN After CFP Bracket Reveal

Oklahoma coach Brent Venables spoke with ESPN’s Rece Davis and Booger McFarland Sunday afternoon before joining a national press conference via Zoom video following the Sooners’ reveal as the No. 8 seed in the upcoming College Football Playoff.

OU hosts No. 9 Alabama on Friday, Dec. 19, at Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.

Here’s everything Venables said during his brief interview:

Rece Davis: “What's it like for you to play a team in the playoff you're very familiar with, and you played them fairly recently?”

Venables: “Yeah. I mean, there's obviously, familiarity that they have with us and we have with them. I think you feel like you have a better understanding of how you match up and what maybe your best matchups are, and then maybe what some matchups are that you got to find a way to get better at those. But just, there's a comfort knowing who you're playing, but also the same challenge know the quality of the roster, the talent, the coaching, all of those things that you're facing as well.”

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McFarland: “First of all, watching your defensive line has me wanting to come out of retirement. Those guys get after the quarterback. That's number one. Number two, how do you get your offense with John Mateer and Ben Arbuckle to kind of play to the level they were playing at earlier in this season? What you're going to need in this playoff game?”

Venables: “Yeah, I mean, again, I've said this a lot: I think the strength of our football team is the team. When you put them all together, you know, I think we're number one in the country in special teams efficiency and average starting field position. I know that matters, because I think there's a, the from a complementary standpoint, we've done a really good job of being an efficient football team when it's all said and done.

“So for us, man, we need to be a better version of that. Take the next two weeks — and certainly we had a week, a couple of days, where we were able to do some self scouting and get our players back on the field a little bit. But how good can we be? How much improvement can we make over a 2 1/2-week period of time. Being a little bit better in a whole bunch of areas adds up to a lot. And we need to, offensively, get back to the rhythm and the cadence that we did earlier in the year, make the layups that are there.

“You know, we've become a more physical football team. We've got three guys up front that are all freshmen that have improved incrementally as we've gone throughout the year and been one of the better, (more) efficient running football teams from a yards-per-rush standpoint in the SEC the back half of the season. That's a good indicator of the improvement that we've made.

“And then we've got to get back to creating the explosive plays. And John is one of the best playmakers in college football when he's at his best. So try to free him up, but at the end of the day, man, be the most physical team, win the turnover battle, be great, like we've been, in special teams, and create big plays and field position and the momentum that we've created as a football team going into this game here a week from Friday night.”

Davis: “Brent, congratulations on everything. Was a spectacular Friday night atmosphere (in the playoff game) at Notre Dame last year. I'm sure it will be in Norman when we're there as well. Congratulations. Wish you the best in the playoff.”

Venables: “Yeah, appreciate it. Sooner Nation’s gonna be ready very soon. You don't have to worry about them.”