It was 1988 when a young Brent Venables looked across the line of scrimmage at players dressed in crimson uniforms, just a shade deeper than the color that now fills his closet.
The Salina South versus Salina Central game was fueled by a crosstown rivalry, and for Venables, who was a senior at Salina South, it represented the epitome of Friday night football.
After leaving Salina, Kansas, to attend Garden City Community College in 1989, Venables would navigate one college schedule after another — as both a player and coach. However, Oklahoma's season opener against Temple on Friday is giving Venables the opportunity to return to his high school roots 36 years later.
“It is not going to be anything the same,” Venables said with a smile on his face. “But this is going to be fun.”
The game against Temple will be the first time that the majority of OU’s coaching staff and players have played a game at home on a Friday night since high school.
However, the national spotlight could not create a sharper contrast.
This season opener is different for the Sooners — it is historic for OU — marking their debut in the SEC, and it also holds significance with Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.
“It is the first time in our stadium’s history,” Venables said about the game being played on a Friday. “But we are in a really good frame of mind right now, and while y’all were going to church on Sunday, we were sweating it out and getting after it like it was Monday.”
OU football head coach Brent Venables during open practice on April 12.
Games like these are rare for OU, and since World War II, the Sooners have played just 16 times on a Friday. During this stretch, Oklahoma has gone 10-6, losing all six matchups to former conference rival Nebraska.
Although Venables does not think a Friday night contest will become a tradition for OU football, he is embracing the opportunity that lies ahead.
“I don’t think this is a philosophy of Oklahoma now,” Venables said. “But I will always be for playing those kickoff-type games.”
‘It definitely affects us’
The sun beaming on a packed Oklahoma Memorial Stadium during Labor Day weekend marks the start of college football season for OU fans.
It is a tradition that Norman North Site Athletic Director Dusty Porch believes local high schools have never had to compete with, and instead, generally benefit from.
“We always kind of feed off the University of Oklahoma,” Porch told OU Daily. “I feel like what they do sets the tone around here.”
The long weekend not only kicks off OU’s season, but it usually marks the week of the annual Norman North versus Norman High game.
This year, the Sooners’ season opener does not just pose an unusual scheduling quirk — but disrupts the Norman high schools' tradition, forcing the two teams to adapt in ways that have rippled throughout the community.
“As far as scheduling goes, it does make it tough on us with them playing on a Friday,” Porch said. “Obviously, we usually play that day of the week, we usually play on that week and we also play our clash game. So, there was some planning around it because it definitely affects us.”
Instead, both teams chose to move their bye week up to week one and the rivalry game to the following Friday. It is a solution that seems to present a simple fix, but the game involves the participation of both schools, along with the attendance of both faculties and fan bases.
Community members have called the schools concerned about why there have not been any advertisements about the game this week and if a permanent change has been made.
“We have always liked to play the game right before Labor Day so there is that extra day to take off after the clash,” Porch said. “It is a big undertaking. There is tons of administration and other people that have to be there to work the event, so it helps to have that extra day off.
“For the community, I think the main thing is just the consistency of it. Everybody was looking forward to it, and we’ve had a lot of people reaching out and asking if there is going to be a game or not. So, the change is going to be a little bit different for people.”
The adjustments had to be made relatively quickly, as OU announced it would move its season opener to a Friday on April 9. Most high schools adjust their schedules slightly throughout January and February but have tentatively set plans heading into spring and summer.
As a coach, Venables knows the undertaking of having to make adjustments and is thankful that local districts like Norman North and Norman High were willing to accommodate.
“It is going to be exciting,” Venables said. “But I’m glad that several teams changed their schedules so that Sooner fans can be here, and so we’re not disrupting as much.”
With recent changes being made within the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association, such as moving private schools in the state into a higher classification, districts were having to change their schedules late in the spring. This opened an unusual adjustment window which aided OU once it decided to move the Temple game.
For Porch, questions about location availability have also been discussed, as the two schools host the Crosstown Clash at Oklahoma Memorial Stadium every three years. After playing the rivalry game there in 2023, it did not pose an issue this season, but the site athletic director would like to avoid the problem in the future.
“We reserve (OU’s) stadium every three years,” Porch said. “It gives kids in our programs at least the opportunity to play there once in their careers. There is a price tag on it, and it is expensive, so we can’t do it every year. But it is neat for those kids to get to play there. It would have been a shame if it was this year and it didn’t work out.”
Norman North High School students at the Crosstown Clash game on Aug. 31, 2023.
Although Porch understands the power that OU football has on Norman and is aware of what Friday night’s game against Temple will mean to the community, he also knows that it would have the same effect 24 hours later.
“I think that Friday night college games definitely take a little bit away from those high school games,” Porch said. “I think when we save Friday night lights for high schools, you fill the stands at both levels and keep revenue coming in.”
‘I have the whole country to myself’
On Saturdays during football season, it is normal for Venables to hold the gaze of the 80,000 people in OU’s stadium.
However, this weekend the head coach will be the one watching.
“We don’t have to be a bunch of robots,” Venables said about having Saturday off. “We could even watch some college football.”
Oklahoma’s game against Temple is one of six on this week’s Friday night slate, but it is the first of just three Friday night matchups played by an SEC team this season.
The other two are the University of Georgia versus Georgia Tech and Mississippi State versus the University of Mississippi. Both games will be played the Friday after Thanksgiving.
But Dave Brown, who worked at ESPN for nearly 28 years, was the vice president of college football programming for 12, and the creator of a scheduling software called Gridiron, knows there are three simple reasons for moving a game.
“I scheduled a lot of Friday night games when I was at ESPN,” Brown told OU Daily. “Sometimes people would move these games because you get one more day of practice during fall camp, you can avoid playing on a Saturday afternoon in August and you don’t have to tie up fans on a weekend.”
Heat indexes in Norman for OU's last three season-opening games reached 93 degrees in 2023, 96 degrees in 2022 and 105 degrees in 2021, and three of the last four years have reached at least 98 degrees during regulation play.
Although pros regarding weather, kickoff time and TV scheduling are evident, as OU’s game against Temple starts at 6 p.m. and will be aired on ESPN, there are potential cons of moving the game.
There will be interference with the state’s high school schedules and a lack of recruiting due to most schools playing on Friday. It also adds an additional challenge as OU will have to make back-to-back schedule adjustments from this week to next. However, Venables is excited about the chance that his team has been presented with.
“I think there are benefits to this,” Venables said. “You can get on a different type of stage to kick off the season and showcase your program and that is a great thing. I think it gives a different level of excitement and focus for your players, and then you get the benefit of, potentially, having a day or two extra in preparation for the next game as well.”
As Venables approaches it from a coaching perspective, Brown sees it from the point of view of someone who has, “never run an athletic department and had a coaching record of 0-0.” But after years of looking at and organizing college schedules, it is easy for him to see the advantages.
Despite five other games being played on Friday, Oklahoma’s is just one of two being broadcasted on a major channel, and it doesn’t have to compete with the 57 games being broadcasted on Saturday.
“Joe Castiglione is a smart man because now if I am OU, I have the whole country to myself,” Brown said. “There won’t be any NFL exhibition games on, and on Saturday you aren’t having to compete with the eight million games going on.”
Head coach Brent Venables (left) and athletics director Joe Castiglione before the game against Texas on Oct. 8, 2022.
Brown understands there are pros and cons to an untraditional Friday night game, but he also knows that during a season like the one OU is about to experience, teams should take everything good thing they can get.
“There is also a human aspect to this,” Brown said. “These people on these teams work incredible hours during the season, and for Oklahoma to give their staff and players a day off, or at least some time to do a little bit less in the midst of the chaos, it is rare.”
This story was edited by Daniel Homrok.
