How Oklahoma's Last Trip to Orlando Led the Sooners (and Brent Venables) to Better Days

The Cheez-It Bowl was not in anyone’s plans for Brent Venables’ first season at Oklahoma.

At 6-6, the Sooners were selected over other more deserving Big 12 teams and probably shouldn’t even be going to Orlando.

But Sooner Nation has precedent for optimism.

OU’s last visit to the Happiest Place on Earth wasn’t so happy, coming at the end of a similarly dismal season — 8-5 that year — and yet the program’s fortunes turned dramatically when they returned home to Norman.

Brent Venables knows this all too well. He was there that night at Camping World Stadium, when Venables’ Clemson Tiger defense took part in pummeling OU 40-6.

“We'll use any type of parallels that you can,” Venables said Sunday. “ … Can it be a springboard for both programs? Certainly.”

Venables helped Clemson used its otherwise disappointing postseason to achieve better days in the future.

Like OU, Clemson had greater aspirations for 2014 when the season began. The Tigers were 11-2 in each of Venables’ first two seasons as Dabo Swinney’s defensive coordinator, but an injury to quarterback Deshaun Watson and other circumstances led to a 9-3 regular season record and matched the Tigers against OU in the Russell Athletic Bowl.

Rather, it was a mismatch.

With backup quarterback Cole Stoudt, the Tigers dominated the Sooners from the opening kick. It was 40-0 before Alex Ross scored a late touchdown to get Oklahoma on the scoreboard.

That Clemson team was back-loaded with talent that became 20 future NFL Draft picks, including eight players who went in the first or second round. The teams even rematched in the Orange Bowl a year later, a College Football Playoff trip that ended as a 20-point Sooner loss.

The point being, both Clemson and Oklahoma had been successful and had high hopes for 2014 but were ultimately left disappointed in Orlando. Both programs used that disappointment to better themselves.

Clemson went 14-1, 14-1, 12-2, 15-0 and 14-1 over the next five years and won two national championships.

Oklahoma went 11-1, 11-2, 12-2, 12-2 and 12-2 and started a string of six straight Big 12 Conference championships.

For OU, in particular, change was hard. Bob Stoops fed off the sour taste from the bowl loss and made wholesale staff changes that he later described as the hardest of his career, including having to fire his national championship quarterback Josh Heupel and his college teammate Jay Norvell.

The changes ultimately led to Stoops hiring Lincoln Riley as offensive coordinator. Riley succeeded Stoops as head coach two years later, and now Venables has succeeded Riley.

Venables calls the Sooners’ Dec. 29 meeting against Florida State in the Cheez-It Bowl “an opportunity,” and why not? He lived similar circumstances eight years ago, turning discontent into future success.

“This is an opportunity to try to continue to build your team, try to create momentum, improve and try to develop confidence,” Venables said. “Certainly, being on a stage where you can continue to sell your program and the vision — to both your current players and certainly recruits that'll be watching.

“Obviously, this will be just a little over a week post-signing day for a good group of guys that'll be signing in the early signing period. It means we can give them a snapshot of something they can look forward to as well as they embark on their careers here in January.”