Many teams go an entire season without one.
OU, however, has been flagged three times this season for sideline penalties. First, on Sept. 9 against SMU for sideline interference. Second, on Oct. 28 against Kansas for unsportsmanlike conduct. Third, last Saturday against Oklahoma State for unsportsmanlike conduct. Oklahoma went 1-2 in those games.
Such undisciplined play, coupled with other mental errors like false starts, have led OU to be the most penalized team in the Big 12 with 64 total penalties in nine games. It also averages 59.2 yards penalized per game.
With Venables and three assistants on staff with head coaching experience — defensive coordinator Ted Roof, analyst Seth Littrell and analyst Matt Wells — the amount of undisciplined errors in the last two games is staggering.
So is the fact that Venables is 2-7 in one-score games.
“It starts with me,” Venables said during his weekly press conference on Tuesday. “Again, attitude, accountability, ownership, motivation, how you teach and how you correct to get the guys to have the right perspective. Again, this year in this sport, handling both success and failure and everything in between is important.
“Getting your mindset, your attitude, your perspective. Perspective drives everything and so having the right perspective; again, it's OK you should be disappointed. You've invested a lot, you didn't get the result that you want, but it's not a failure.”
Being a first-time head coach comes with learning experiences and growing pains. Venables, a former defensive coordinator, juggled full responsibilities of the Sooners’ football program for the first time a year ago. Now, on the heels of a disappointing first season, he’s made notable improvements, most prominently being the defense’s play.
However, self-inflicted stumbles in game management, in-game adjustments, offensive play calling and undisciplined errors and penalties remain significant issues for No. 17 OU (7-2, 4-2 Big 12) — and have been difference makers in the team’s two consecutive losses ahead of Saturday’s meeting at 6 p.m. against West Virginia (6-3, 4-2) on Fox.
“When you're the head coach, you're responsible for everything,” former Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti told the OU Daily this week by phone. “You have to worry about everything that can go wrong and everything that can happen and you don't get quite as much pride. You're a step slightly removed from your players.
“But back (as a coordinator), you only worried about (your side of the ball). You worry about our production, I worry about our kids being good kids and all that but I didn’t have to worry about discipline for the entire team.”
Before being hired to succeed longtime Ducks coach Rich Brooks, Bellotti was a successful offensive coordinator. Similarly to Venables, Bellotti had to learn on the fly how to manage an entire program and devote time to the side of the ball he wasn’t as experienced with.
Venables has talked the past two years about the transition from coordinator to head coach and devoting time to other areas of the team. He’s also been outspoken about avoiding micromanaging and giving assistant coaches a certain level of autonomy, something he appreciated when he was an assistant. Amid the Sooners’ running back struggles, Venables assured position coach DeMarco Murray was the CEO of the room because that’s what he’s paid for.
“Assistant coaches make suggestions, head coaches make decisions,” Bellotti said. “And you have to decide, this is where I'm going to get to as a head coach. What's your strength? What are your responsibilities? And what are you going to entrust to other people?”
OU head football coach Brent Venables before the game against Oklahoma State on Nov. 4.
As Oklahoma’s losses have knocked it out of College Football Playoff contention, much of fans’ criticism has fallen at the feet of offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby. Fans have questioned whether Venables should become more involved with the offense or let Lebby do his thing.
When Bellotti retired from coaching to become Oregon’s athletic director, then-Ducks coach Chip Kelly asked him to coach the quarterbacks one spring. Bellotti loved how hands-on he was and said practice flew by compared to when he was in charge.
Venables is highly involved at practices, often jumping in drills and breaking a sweat.
“I didn’t know that I could do that, spend the time I needed to and do the other things I had to do now as a head coach,” Bellotti said. “With recruiting, with media, boosters, etc. And then also, I wanted to be more involved on special teams, because that was the one that nobody really wants to coach special teams. … Every coach goes through a learning curve.”
It helps having Hall of Fame coach Bob Stoops, who still lives in Norman, down the road to answer questions and aid Venables when needed. He also speaks with Clemson coach Dabo Swinney and legendary coach Bill Snyder, two of his other mentors, weekly.
Bellotti, who serves in a similar role as Stoops, sometimes sneaks into Ducks practices to catch a glimpse of coach Dan Lanning’s squad. He also said he and Lanning have a weekly standing meeting to discuss what Bellotti sees and that week’s upcoming opponent.
Like Stoops, Bellotti tries to stay in the shadows and help when he can without overstepping on the vision of the program’s current coach.
“I think having coach Stoops around is great,” Bellotti said.
Head coach Brent Venables and interim head coach Bob Stoops celebrate after defeating No. 14 Oregon in the Valero Alamo Bowl at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, on Dec. 29.
It was the same story for Watson Brown, older brother of North Carolina and former Texas coach Mack Brown, when he earned the head gig at Austin Peay. After serving as offensive coordinator for a season before becoming a head coach, Brown struggled at first with the realization he had the final say with everything.
When Brown’s staff would meet weekly, he would open the floor for anyone to speak their minds ahead of a game. However, he said when the coaches left the meeting, everyone was in agreement and took responsibility for the game plan.
He said hiring for the side of the ball that isn’t their expertise is the most crucial hire a head coach makes.
“That's hard,” Brown said. “That's one of the toughest things I think you have to do. And first, you have to decide how deep am I getting into this offense? Or how deep am I getting into this defense?
“If you're a defensive guy, and you've been a defensive guy your whole career, that (offensive coordinator) hire is a trusting hire. And you've got to hire somebody that's going to do the philosophy that you want and you trust him. And you let him go and you let him do it.”
Messaging is a crucial part of being the spokesperson for a program as well. Earlier this week, Venables walked back his Saturday night endorsement of Lebby’s final fourth down play call, which sealed the Sooners’ downfall against the Cowboys.
Like Bellotti, Brown said it was also an adjustment to fully deal with the media for the first time, especially at schools like Cincinnati and Vanderbilt, which are in the middle of metropolitan areas.
“There are so many places you have to be,” Brown said. “And you just have to be, because you’ve got to excite the fan base, the community in those cities, and there's a lot going on in cities that are competition. So that was hard. And it really wore me down, because I would try to figure out how to do all of that.”
OU head football coach Brent Venables during the game against Kansas on Oct. 28.
Now, the challenge for Venables and his staff is correcting the mistakes in OU’s final three games of 2023. He’s preached — and his players have received — a message of not dwelling on the past and not looking ahead to the future, but to always prepare for each week’s respective opponent.
What has Venables learned about evaluating wrongdoings in almost two full seasons of being a head coach?
“It's got to be eyes forward,” Venables said. “Can't sit there and look in the rearview mirror and put the car in a ditch you’ve got to (have) eyes forward and again, what we got to do in front of us, where we’ve got to correct, where we’ve got to get better, whether that's schemes or it’s fundamentals or new players getting added to the mix. It's the matchups for the next opponent, all those things.”
A lot of fans question what leads to the mental mistakes in crucial situations like the ones last weekend in Stillwater. In addition to the sideline penalty and two misjudged snaps by center Andrew Raym, Oklahoma was called for false start three times, defensive offsides once and a receiver lined up offside once.
What specifically can be done to correct them?
“Gotta be locked in more in the moment,” Venables said. “Maybe it’s in the huddle. … False starts happen every week for all teams in college football. It’s a big deal but it’s not, ‘You’re this far, how come it’s still happening?’
“We were on the road and didn’t handle the noise very well, so we moved. It’s not one guy doing it 50 times. We had two different receivers do it and an offensive lineman do it. .. Slow down so you can get it right.”
Redshirt fifth year wide receiver Drake Stoops during the game against Oklahoma State on Nov. 4.
For Brown, pre-snap and penalties away from the play — common pitfalls for these Sooners — were worse than in-play flags.
“I couldn’t stand that,” Brown said. “They’ve got to feel that from the head man. … This isn’t what we’re gonna be and this is going to stop now. … Turnover and penalties, that was it. I could not take that.”
When pressed by a reporter this week on if Oklahoma practices not jumping offsides. Venables laughed the question off as if it was a given. Maybe it is.
“I would quickly switch over,” Brown said of pouring more energy into the offense when he was a head coach, “if I had some adjustments we needed to make to talk to some offensive guys who would do that quickly.”
What is a given is the Sooners have played with less discipline than it takes to win one-score games. Venables knows it as well as that he’s only got a few more games this season to fix it.
“Well, the last two weeks, being on the road, (penalties are) something that’s common,” Venables said. “We were pretty dang good prior to the Kansas game and not so good coming out of the last two games.
“... Your procedure is how to play and line up the right way. You have a snap count, the ball is moving on every play in practice. Somebody is snapping the ball. You damn right you work on it. Every day. Multiple times. A hundred times a practice on both sides of the ball. … They get it right most of the time.”
