Oklahoma Prepared to Kick Off First Spring Practice Under Brent Venables on Tuesday

Preparations for this fall get underway Tuesday as OU's new coaching staff begins on-field work with the Sooners.

Tuesday marks the beginning of the next phase in the construction of Brent Venables’ program at Oklahoma.

The Sooners will take the field for their first spring practice and eventually put on the pads. From the starting line, it’s a 33-day sprint for the team to take shape under Venables ahead of the Spring Game on April 23.

Venables said strength and conditioning coach Jerry Schmidt was able to push the team physically during winter workouts. The gains from Schmidt’s work in winter will not only be felt on the field, Venables said, but the workouts helped set the tone for the culture Venables hopes to build in Norman.

“Just tremendous, tremendous improvement with our guys and their strength and their speed,” Venables said at his Monday press conference to kick off spring. “Really got more flexible and more mobile.

“ … Learned the value of commitment and the value of accountability and really (what) our expectations are, what our standards are when it comes to those two things. And our guys are now defending those things and they’re rehearsing what it means to be committed and be accountable. We want to have a culture, certainly, of accountability, which leads to a culture of execution.”

Along with the new culture, Venables’ first coaching staff at Oklahoma also brings new systems on both sides of the ball.

The coaches will spend plenty of time both installing the new offense and defense, but also developing great technique within each position group.

As the players absorb all the information, Venables said he’s also wiping the prior slate clean.

Spring football will be a “blank canvas,” Venables said, as the coaching staff will throw out any previous depth chart.

“Going into our first practice I think it’s critical — regardless of where you are in your journey, first year (or) sixth year — that we put our attention and focus on just daily improvement,” Venables said. “Really trying to make it as simple as possible.”

“ … So we’re going to do our best to, again, just have it be a daily focus on daily improvement. Have a formula for success every day that can really apply and it’s very applicable to every part of their life, socially, academically, spiritually and certainly athletically.”

That focus on every small detail, from learning the play book to executing drills, will help the team make the necessary leaps in every aspect of the game. Attacking each practice with great effort will be a barrier to entry at practices in Norman under Venables, but that alone won’t be enough to get the Sooners back to where they want to be.

“Effort with technique,” Venables said. “Can’t just be a high-effort guy and you don’t know where you’re going, right?

“ … Effort isn’t good enough. Uncommon effort is what we talked about, but it’s uncommon effort with technique. That’s how you have great execution.”

The road to the spring game won’t be without hiccups, and Venables understands that.

But he said the goal of the coaching staff is to do everything they can to prepare the team so they can have the right response when things go poorly.

The coaching staff will have a large role in setting that tone, Venables said.

Venables even went so far as to have his staff preform a practice walkthrough on Monday afternoon just to ensure every position coach would know exactly where he needs to be at any given time throughout practice to set the best example possible for the players.

“Players are paying attention to all of that, so try to be incredibly detailed,” Venables said. “We can be demanding. Coaches got to, that's one thing — do as you say, not as you do — so we've got to do a good job of doing. We tell the players to be about it, well, we need to be too.

“ … I've tried to get our coaches to understand through eight weeks of mat drills and workouts, what the standard looks like to me, and to make sure that the coaches are all-in too. It can't just be the players. The commitment, the focus, the intensity, the passion, the details comes from everybody.”

Fans won’t get to see the results of Oklahoma’s work until the Spring Game, and the final verdict on the job Venables is doing won’t be rendered until games are played this fall.

But the long road to OU’s 2022 football season largely starts with spring practice.

“We've been in the process of preparing for this,” Venables said. “Sun Tzu says every battle is won before it's fought. I think that's where, I think, the separation comes is through that preparation.”

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