Oklahoma football: ‘You’re doin’ fine Oklahoma!’ Colin Cowherd’s mea culpa on Sooners

Sports talk personality Colin Cowherd has been an outspoken critic of Oklahoma football since Lincoln Riley jumped ship and headed for what he believed were greener pastures and the sunshine of Southern California.

Cowherd has been a big supporter of Riley believed USC football had finally found their man and the one who would restore the Trojans to the college football prominence they once enjoyed. On the other hand, Cowherd was not sold on the hiring of Brent Venables and predicted that the Sooners were destined to take a plunge into mediocrity, a place that has been extremely rare in Oklahoma’s illustrious history.

OU’s disappointing 6-7 2022 campaign in Venables first season at the helm only served to confirm Cowherd’s theory.

In June of this year, Cowherd sent out an “X” message (at the time Twitter), imploring, “Keep your eye on Oklahoma. Are they going to be the second program in our adult life that disappears?”

The other program Cowherd was referring to is Nebraska.

Helping fuel Cowherd’s concern, I’m certain, was Oklahoma’s move next season to the SEC an even stronger football conference, especially at the upper half of the league.

That was back in June, but Cowherd had seen this coming, so he led us to believe, long before that.

Flash forward now to Week 8 of the 2023 college football season and Year two of the Venables era at Oklahoma. The Sooners stand 6-0 and ranked No. 6 in the Associated Press Top 25 rankings. USC sits 12 spots back of Oklahoma after suffering a 41-20 beatdown by Notre Dame this past weekend.

Whoops! It appears now that Cowherd has changed face, admitting, sort off, that he may have misjudged Oklahoma. Here, in part, is what he had to say on Monday during his daily “The Herd” program on FOX Sports 1:

"“Brent Venables not Lincoln Riley has developed a culture in a year and a half based on substance, defense. They’ve improved…“They haven’t played a great schedule, but they did beat Texas and they looked like the better coached team. Lots of substance. Not a ton of flash. Right now, Brent Venables is right.”"

Now it’s up to the Sooners to keep it up moving forward. Cowherd is backing off of his earlier comments about Oklahoma, but he will quickly pivot back to his anti-OU and Venables premise the minute he’s given the opportunity to do so.