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Oklahoma Coach Brent Venables Lands on Bear Bryant Award Watch List

The Sooners are among the top-ranked offenses and defenses in the country, and Venables has already matched last year's win total.
John E. Hoover|
Oklahoma Coach Brent Venables Lands on Bear Bryant Award Watch List
Oklahoma Coach Brent Venables Lands on Bear Bryant Award Watch List

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Oklahoma Sooners

NORMAN — Oklahoma coach Brent Venables is having quite the bounce-back year.

That was validated on Tuesday when Venables was among 26 men named to the Bear Bryant Award midseason watch list.

The second-year coach has already matched his win total from 2022 as the Sooners have raced out to a 6-0 start. His rookie season ended with a 6-6 regular-season mark and a loss to Florida State in the Cheez-It Bowl.

OU and Penn State are the only FBS teams in America with both their offense and their defense ranked in the top seven nationally in points scored and points allowed.

Presented by the American Heart Association, the Bear Bryant Award honors the top coaches in college football while also raising life-saving funds and awareness for heart and brain health.

At Venables’ weekly press conference on Tuesday, he steered the discussion toward avoiding distractions and staying the course.

“I’m hopeful, and believe that our team is committed to improve and get better and stay focused and starve the distractions, if you will, and lock in what we have to do to get 1-0 this week,” he said. “We have a very talented and experienced UCF team coming in.”

The Sooners (6-0) and Knights (3-3) meet at 11 a.m. Saturday at Owen Field. ABC has the broadcast.

Venables is among three Big 12 coaches on this year’s watch list, joining Kansas’ Lance Leipold and Texas’ Steve Sarkisian.

The ACC and Big Ten each have four candidates on the list (including North Carolina’s Mack Brown and FSU’s Mike Norvell), while the Pac-12 and SEC each have five (including Kentucky’s Mark Stoops and USC’s Lincoln Riley).

The Bear Bryant Award Watch List:

  • Jeff Brohm, Louisville
  • Mack Brown, North Carolina
  • Mike Elko, Duke
  • Mike Norvell, FSU
  • Ryan Day, Ohio State
  • James Franklin, Penn State
  • Jim Harbaugh, Michigan
  • Mike Locksley, Maryland
  • Lance Leipold, Kansas
  • Steve Sarkisian, Texas
  • Brent Venables, Oklahoma
  • Kalen DeBoer, Washington
  • Dan Lanning, Oregon
  • Lincoln Riley, USC
  • Deion Sanders, Colorado
  • Jonathan Smith, Oregon State
  • Elijah Drinkwitz, Missouri
  • Lane Kiffin, Mississippi
  • Nick Saban, Alabama
  • Kirby Smart, Georgia
  • Mark Stoops, Kentucky
  • Troy Calhoun, Air Force
  • Curt Cignetti, James Madison
  • Jamey Chadwell, Liberty
  • Willie Fritz, Tulane
  • G.J. Kinne, Texas State 
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John E. Hoover
JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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