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Oklahoma Focused on Maintaining Its Own Standards Headed Into UTEP Week

Though the Miners debuted in Week 0, Brent Venables said the scouting and game week preparations remain mostly unchanged as the Sooners inch closer to game day.

The Oklahoma Sooners will have a little more information than normal headed into their season opener.

UTEP, who will make the trek to Norman next weekend to face Brent Venables’ Sooners, opened up its season with a 31-13 defeat at the hands of North Texas on Saturday. 

The Miners (0-1) will arrive at Oklahoma with a week of game experience under their belt, but there’s also a game’s worth of tape out there now.

And while OU’s coaching staff put in the extra work to build the game plan for the week, Venables said his team is still more concerned about making their own improvements ahead of the season opener.

“I don’t think it’s any harder than it normally is,” Venables said after Oklahoma concluded a practice on Thursday. “Is it an advantage? I wouldn’t say if it is or isn’t. For us, we’re going to worry about us and how we get ready. Certainly we’ll use their game as an additional resource for how we prepare, no question about it. But they’ve been preparing for this moment too.

“I want our guys to focus on Oklahoma and the man in the mirror, but it’s always important to respect the motivation and the mindset of your opponent. I think that’s incredibly important.”

Regardless of what any team appears to be on film, Venables stressed to his team that when the ball kicks off, the Sooners are going to see an entirely different animal each week.

“We’re going to get a game seven mentally from everybody that we play,” he said. “Everybody. When we play somebody, they hate Oklahoma. There’s not this mutual respect. They hate Oklahoma.

“Whatever is on film, it’s going to be at another level when they play Oklahoma. That has to be your mindset. Respect what their motivation is too.”

Building that kind of mindset starts on the practice field, Venables believes.

As the calendar flips from fall camp to game week on Monday, the focus is going to be on continuing to get the best out of each individual player throughout the week so that Saturday’s become second nature.

“This isn’t just getting ready for a game,” he said. “We play and prepare and practice and work and think and eat and drink and sleep to a standard.

“What that looks like to our guys is you have to be inside out. You have to literally be focused on one day at a time. You can’t be worried about Sept. 3.”

Still, once the Sooners roll out against the Miners, there will be plenty of uncertainty for Oklahoma to work through.

Venables has never coached a game as a head coach, and there are new faces littered across OU’s roster who have never donned the Crimson and Cream.

Whatever the result against UTEP, the team will be a work in progress. And come Monday, Venables’ staff will be hard at work trying to ensure every player is in the best position possible to succeed in Game 1.

“Getting into opponent preparation creates a newness that’s exciting and challenging, too,” he said. “You get used to certain motions and formations and runs and passes (throughout fall camp) and now you have to start over. That’s what makes preparing for a season so incredibly difficult.

“… The players have to take a huge role in the preparation and the investment so that they get to a comfort level where they can play fast and explosive and confident each and every week.”


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