Oklahoma Coach Brent Venables Believes Sooners Will Compete for SEC Title

NORMAN — Brent Venables is unfazed by his team’s subpar placement in the SEC Media Preseason Poll.

Venables, entering his fourth season as the Sooners’ head coach, said at Thursday’s OU Football Coaches Luncheon that he expects Oklahoma to compete for an SEC title in 2025.

The credentialed media at SEC Media Days in Atlanta picked OU to finish 10th out of 16 teams in the conference on Friday. CBS Sports on Thursday predicts OU will finish 13th.

“There’s no game on our schedule that we can’t win. And I say that straight-faced,” Venables said. “I know our players have put in that kind of work, and that’s their mindset. It would be disrespectful for me to say, ‘Yeah, (10th) is about right.’”

Oklahoma’s first season in the conference was disappointing.

After the Sooners went 10-3 in 2023, they went 6-7 overall and 2-6 in SEC games in 2024. Oklahoma’s lone conference wins came against Auburn and Alabama, while the Sooners fell against Texas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Missouri and LSU. OU earned a bid to the Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth, where the Sooners fell 21-20 to Navy.

The Sooners received just about every bad break possible last season.

Wide receivers Nic Anderson, Jalil Farooq, Andrel Anthony, Deion Burks and Jayden Gibson all missed significant time with injuries. The Sooners also played unique offensive line starting lineups in each of their first nine games, due to injuries and inconsistent play.

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Those struggles, though, have made OU a better team, per Venables.

“(It was) one of the craziest years that I’ve been a part of,” Venables said. “The byproduct of that was a lot of players gaining experience and a lot of guys incrementally improving and getting better. I think that’s really going to help us foundationally, going into what we’ve seen this spring, this summer.”

Venables called this offseason the team’s best since he became OU’s head coach in 2022.

Though 2024 didn’t go as planned — OU was ranked No. 16 in the AP Preseason Poll — Venables said his players have become more confident.

“I think the confidence comes from a body of work,” Venables said. “We have tremendous chemistry. We really like where we’re at right now. I think the depth of the players who are invested in the program that have real ownership in the product, it shows. It’s a confident group of guys.”

He also believes new quarterback John Mateer and offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle have helped instill energy into the program after both of them came to Norman from Washington State.

“Coach Arbuckle and the offensive staff have done a wonderful job of creating culture through relationships, through connection, just being passionate and bringing a lot of energy every day,” Venables said. “John Mateer makes everybody better on the offensive side of the ball. He was immediately able to plug in and have a really big impact.”

Oklahoma has one of college football’s most daunting schedules in 2025.

In addition to battling the same eight SEC opponents from 2024, the Sooners will host Michigan — the 2023 national champion — in Week 2.

Even so, Venables has faith that the Sooners will be one of college football’s breakout teams this year.

“I know what our players’ intent is, I know the work that they’ve put in,” Venables said. “That’s why you go play the games. I haven’t had the chance to go back and look at what the predictions were a year ago, but we know this: You earn your way through the field of play, and everything’s settled on game day.”

Oklahoma opens the 2025 season against Illinois State on Saturday, Aug. 30.