Oklahoma Coach Brent Venables Asked His Team, 'Wanna Have Fun? Here's How'

With two minutes left in Saturday’s crimson showdown in Tuscaloosa, the Alabama-Oklahoma game was still very much in the balance.

At the stoppage of play, the crew at Bryant-Denny Stadium cut off the lights. A ribbon board lit up with an almost iridescent crimson, bathing everyone in deep red. And one of the hits from the old country group Alabama began blaring “Dixieland Delight.”

After Oklahoma had broken Bama’s 17-game home field winning streak with a dramatic 23-21 upset, it was the Sooners who ran “Dixieland Delight” through the aux cord, setting off a postgame locker room celebration worthy of such a monumental triumph.

“That's probably the most gratifying part for me, is they like to have fun,” head coach Brent Venables said Monday night on his weekly coach’s show, “Sooner Sports Talk With Brent Venables. “The fun’s in the winning. Y’all want to have fun? Let's turn “Dixieland” up, and let's go in the locker room after we win the game. And so you got to kind of create vision for that.”

There might be more fun ahead.

Coming off Saturday’s victory — their second straight win over the Crimson Tide — the Sooners are ranked No. 8 in this week’s Associated Press Top 25 poll and the AFCA Coaches Poll. OU improved to 8-2 overall and 4-2 in Southeastern Conference games with two regular-season contests left — both at home.

This week’s College Football Playoff rankings will be revealed Tuesday night. The Sooners haven’t participated in the CFP since losing to LSU in Atlanta in the Peach Bowl in 2019.

Looking ahead to Oklahoma’s final two games, additional postgame celebrations won’t be easy.

But that’s exactly what makes them so much fun.

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On Saturday, Oklahoma hosts No. 23 Missouri (7-3) in an 11 a.m. kickoff at Owen Field, and next week OU welcomes unranked LSU (6-4).

Players on this year’s Sooner squad might be feeling like a bit of revenge is in order after their maiden voyage in the SEC in 2024 went sideways with these two opponents.

At Mizzou, OU rallied to take a late lead on Billy Bowman’s fumble return for a touchdown, but a disastrous fumble by quarterback Jackson Arnold handed the Tigers the 30-23 victory in the final seconds.

In Baton Rouge, the Sooners took a 14-10 lead midway through the second quarter, then gave up a 100-yard kickoff return, then tied it with a late field goal, but immediately gave up a long touchdown pass before halftime — before being blown out in the second half and losing 37-17.

Venables recapped the game by applauding his team’s efforts on defense, special teams and on offense — despite the Sooner offense managing just 16 points, 212 yards and 12 first downs and averaging just 4.2 yards per play.

He loves the fact that Ben Arbuckle’s offense didn’t commit a turnover, that quarterback John Mateer showed strength, speed, toughness, smarts and resilience on his 20-yard touchdown run, that Mateer completed an efficient 15-of-23 throws, and that OU scored on all three trips inside the red zone — keeping them perfect (31-of-31) on red zone scoring this season. Eastern Michigan (32-of-32) is the only other FBS team to score on every red zone chance.

Combined with a defense that made quarterback Ty Simpson uncomfortable all night, stoned the Tide running game and turned in a handful of big plays, and a special teams unit that once again delivered championship plays throughout — OU’s special teams rank No. 2 in the nation behind Penn State; Venables said his team is No. 1 by the analytics he follows — the Sooners left Tuscaloosa with a 4-0 mark against the Tide in regular-season meetings.

“That's how you beat good people,” Venables said. “Every yard has magnitude. I think that's a mindset. I think everything — the tone is always set through the mindset.”

Venables said the team had a good week of practice and meetings and was focused on winning the turnover margin, among other things. But he said the Alabama game wasn’t won just on Saturday, or even last week.

“It's really more than a week,” Venables said. “It's always starting back in January. And so every time — you only get 12 guaranteed games — and so you need to have perspective and kind of just some joy and gratitude in the moment.

“Because as soon as you get back — it's like I told the boys; we got back maybe 12:30 (a.m.) — ‘All right, you boys got 25 minutes til curfew.’ They just kind of got quiet. Real quiet. Then I told them I’ll meet them at Logie’s or wherever. I'm kidding.”