Report Cards: Why Oklahoma Coaching Was Much Better in 2023

Brent Venables and the Oklahoma coaching staff took a significant step forward in 2023.

That’s to be expected in Year 2, of course. Venables’ second year as a head coach went immeasurably smoother than his first year did. That’s evident in the team’s record: the Sooners improved from six wins to 10, from a losing record to 10-3, and they were one epic BYU collapse in Stillwater away from returning to the Big 12 Championship Game.

That’s a pretty solid improvement in the year-over-year product.

But a glance back at 2023 and a peek ahead to 2024 shows just how much improvement this OU coaching staff still needs to make as a cohesive group.

Whether it was untimely gameday miscues or questionable personnel decisions or the team’s occasional emotional undulations from one week to the next, Venables and his staff are still striving to find that peak, still fighting to overcome obstacles and still searching for that consistent championship level.

Give credit to Venables and company for rising up and beating Texas. The Sooners were short a quarterback last year and endured a 49-0 beatdown, but just a year later, with Dillon Gabriel healthy, they did what no other team could do this season prior to the College Football Playoff: they knocked off the Longhorns. It’s Texas’ best team in well over a decade, yet they tasted bitter defeat that October day in Dallas, languishing as the Sooners passed around the Golden Hat.

That would be the pinnacle for Oklahoma, of course, the high point in a season of almost. Texas, on the other hand, fixed things and won one last Big 12 crown and made the CFP.

And there’s the rub.

2023 Oklahoma Report Cards

The very next game, after an open date, no less, the Sooners needed to stop a 2-point play and recover an onside kick — in Norman — to outlast a UCF team that finished with a losing record.

Venables and his staff did what they could to convince the players to put the Texas result behind them, but, as a 17-point favorite who had to hold on to win 31-29, it seems their message was not received.

The following week, the Sooners played ragged football from the opening kickoff and ended up losing at Kansas. The Jayhawks came in with their backup quarterback, but the OU defense was clearly not prepared for Jason Bean’s speed. Meanwhile, Jeff Lebby clearly didn't trust Gabriel and took the game out of his hands in an important moment of the fourth quarter. But the nadir of that game was an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on the Sooner sideline — on a member of the assistant coaching staff — for going overboard with an official about a call. That added 15 yards to a big play and fueled KU’s winning touchdown drive.

A week later, the same thing happened in Stillwater — only this time the penalty flag was on Venables himself. A blown pass interference no-call in the end zone ensured the Sooners’ comeback would fall short, but it was Venables’ 15-yard infraction the drive before that gave the Cowboys a boost on their go-ahead possession. The flag did seem to come out quick, but Venables later acknowledged his crime. Also in the loss to OSU, Lebby's fourth-and-5 call to Drake Stoops included a route that was 2 yards short of a first down — a play so bad that Venables later said they had a "Rolodex" of plays that would have been better.

The OU sideline penalties were costly, but given additional context, they were unforgivable: in Week 2, against SMU, in the fourth quarter of a game Oklahoma led just 14-3, Venables had been flagged for sideline interference with an official — he was too far out on the field and collided with a striped shirt. That resulted in a 10-yard, half-the-distance penalty, and SMU went on to convert a touchdown and 2-pointer to make it 14-11 with 12 minutes to play.

Under Dabo Swinney, Venables famously had a “get-back” coach at Clemson because he’s so emotionally invested and frequently found himself on the field. Given the outcome of 2023, he might do well to hire another one at Oklahoma.

Venables also gets demerits for not knowing his offensive coordinator, Lebby, had invited his father-in-law, Art Briles, to the SMU game. Both Venables and athletic director Joe Castiglione conveyed their steaming disappointment with the whole thing, and Lebby was forced to publicly apologize, but Venables should have been aware — or made aware by Lebby. As he begins his third year as a head coach, Venables now realizes there are things that he might have no control over but still fall at his feet, and no doubt he’s communicated that to the staff.

In fact, Venables seemed to communicate his expectations much more effectively in Year 2. For example, no longer were there head-scratching moments from the offensive coordinator for running high-tempo offense while trying to salt away a game. Sooner Nation's ire instead centered on Lebby's play calling, such as the three straight running plays and a punt at KU.

It’s hard to criticize offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh for shuffling the front five like he did. First, because Bedenbaugh has earned the benefit of the doubt and is only trying to get the best five on the field. But Savion Byrd’s multiple shortcomings at left guard weren’t fully addressed until the Texas game at midseason. And the way Tyler Guyton — widely projected as a first-round pick — never got his job back at right tackle late in the season was unusual.

Running backs coach DeMarco Murray’s hesitancy to settle on a starter and a backup was strange. One week, a guy (Tawee Walker in this case) would post career-high numbers, then the next week he would get zero carries. Murray tried four different starters at running back, and through the early stages of the season, there seemed to be no obvious rhyme or reason for why one player was getting all the snaps and others were getting none — because a week later, it would change. Eventually, Murray settled on a healthy Gavin Sawchuk, and the results were spectacular.

Special teams were costly, from penalties that hurt field position to a blocked punt in the end zone to missed field goals — all of which gives special teams analyst Jay Nunez and the assistant coaches assigned to those teams reason to sharpen their focus a little more in 2024.

Give tons of credit where credit is due, especially in the area of player development — at multiple positions.

Lebby, Matt Holocek and the quarterback staff seemed to maximize what they got out of Gabriel, who had the best season of his career — and was absolutely clutch against Texas. They also had Jackson Arnold 100 percent prepped for the situation of replacing Gabriel at halftime of the BYU game. A big part of that is Arnold’s mental makeup and talent, but it was clear that Lebby and company had him ready — even though a week earlier, they had decided to redshirt him.

(That was actually a big flaw from 2023, Lebby’s insistence on using Arnold as a short-yardage runner early — it didn’t even work very well — and ultimately needing to burn his redshirt against BYU. Arnold would have benefited much more from operating the entire offensive playbook in limited situations rather than lining up as a single-wing QB on fourth-and-inches and smashing into the pile, and then not playing at all for five weeks.)

After the wide receivers went from Cale Gundy to L’Damian Washington right before the start of the 2022 season, Emmett Jones turned the Oklahoma wide receiver corps into the strength of the team in 2023. Drake Stoops overachieved into a starring role and became the offense’s most consistent player; Nic Anderson lived up to his ability and led the nation in yards per catch while setting a Big 12 freshman touchdown record; Jayden Gibson finally found consistency and focus with his hands and became a big-play threat; Jalil Farooq continued his upward career trajectory (before the Alamo Bowl); and Brenen Thompson went from quiet threat to instant touchdown.

The OU linebackers also got better under Venables (and Ted Roof and GA James Skalski), with Danny Stutsman finding a satisfying balance between stardom and rock-solid consistency. Jaren Kanak grew his game, too, and when he needed to see the game from a different perspective, coaches benched him and inserted the ultra-productive Kip Lewis, who was ready for the moment. Another year together with Venables and new LBs coach Zac Alley should produce even more growth.

Although missed tackles cropped up again over the second half of the season, Brandon Hall’s safeties became a strength of the unit, with Billy Bowman playing at an All-American level and freshman Peyton Bowen and seniors Key Lawrence and Reggie Pearson routinely producing big plays with occasional dips.

The defensive line — both interior and edge rushers — were up and down in 2023. Todd Bates and Miguel Chavis presided over an improved group overall, but both coaches also know the potential is clearly there for a more dynamic pass rush and more disruptive front.

Tight ends under Joe Jon Finley and cornerbacks under Jay Valai seemed to take a slight step back, but both positions were either wrecked or frequently disrupted by injuries, so those grades are somewhat incomplete. Valai also got more out of his newcomers, like Kendel Dolby and a talented group of freshmen, than most observers thought he could.

The 2023 season wasn’t played in a vacuum.

Venables and his family are still dealing with the unimaginable challenge of a breast cancer diagnosis and treatment for his wife, Julie. She’s “doing better,” Venables said in San Antonio, but still on the long, difficult road to recovery.

And while all this and football too was unfolding during the fall, Venables and his staff were closing on another consensus top-10 recruiting class — this, on the heels of landing a top-5 class in 2023.

The future at Oklahoma now centers around a massively tough 2024 schedule and the coming trials of competing in the SEC — every week on the field and every day on the recruiting trail.

But if 2023 revealed anything about the OU coaching staff, that future looks bright.

AllSooners Coaching Grades

Hoover: B
Chapman: B+
Sweet: B
Lovelace: B+

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