Leading a college football program with a storied history, Brent Venables is doing something most other Oklahoma head ball coaches did not: Lose.
The Sooners concluded their 2024 season with a 21-20 loss to Navy in the Armed Forces Bowl on Friday in Forth Worth, Texas. The loss put OU at 6-7 for the season, giving the Sooners their second losing record in three years.
As The Oklahoman's Ryan Aber pointed out in an article leading up to the bowl game, Venables became one of only two coaches in OU's history during the last century to have more than one losing season during their tenures leading the program.
In Venables' first season as a head coach of any sort in 2022, OU went 6-7, again thanks to a close loss in a mediocre bowl game after a disappointing regular season. The Sooners, though, recovered with a 10-3 season last year to restore faith in the hire of Brent Venables.
But this season in the Sooners' first go in the SEC, they went 6-7 again. The campaign included a winless October and a midseason firing of offensive coordinator Seth Littrell before concluding with another loss in an even lower tier bowl game inside a Big 12 stadium.
The only other coach to experience multiple losing seasons at OU was John Blake. A coach wants to be compared to Bob and Barry and Bud in Oklahoma, not Blake. Blake was responsible for the worst three-year stretch in OU history.
Blake never led the Sooners to a winning record in three seasons. He was fired after the third in 1998 and was replaced by Bob Stoops in 1999.
Once Stoops took over then eventually passed the program to Lincoln Riley, the Sooners never lost more than they won in a season. Until Venables' first year then again in his third.
Blake did not survive a third losing season. And neither will Venables, no matter how much has changed in college football or at OU. Regardless of conference, NIL funding or transfers, expectations will never change at Oklahoma.
Venables can either continue what the Sooners are used to like Bob and Barry and Bud and even Lincoln did, or he'll forever be compared to John Blake and won't coach at OU beyond 2025.