Brent Venables is ready for Murphy’s Law to rear its head.
The old adage says “anything that can go wrong will go wrong,” and Oklahoma’s first-year head coach is cognizant of that as the Sooners begin 2022 spring practice on Tuesday.
For OU football, the past two springs have proved Murphy right. COVID-19 nixed the Sooners’ 2020 plans for March and April. Spring 2021 included practicing amid the pervasive virus and dealing with an alleged robbery involving three players who were eventually dismissed from the team.
Yet, as Venables repeatedly emphasized on the eve of another spring startup, the present is “a clean slate” for players and coaches alike now that he’s helming the Sooners, after being hired to replace Lincoln Riley on Dec. 5. And, though he anticipates “bumps along the road,” Venables believes his experiences since he was first an OU coach 23 years ago have prepared him come what may.
“I can tell you right now, there's no perfect person in this program and there's gonna be some mistakes made,” Venables said Monday. “And, again, hopefully, I'll respond the right way when those things happen, because that'll happen, too. (I’ll) be on the wrong side, like ‘dang it, I didn’t do that right,’ or whatever.
“Maybe (I’m) just coming out of a meeting (where) the tone of the meeting wasn't good. Or maybe it's responding on the field to a mistake, where I wish I would have handled it better. And I've had that happen my whole career. My wife reminds me all the time.”
Accountably, Venables reminded himself Monday of two prior instances where he didn’t respond to difficulty like he’d intended.
In 2006, quarterback Rhett Bomar was dismissed from OU’s program after accepting payment for work he didn’t perform at a local car dealership. The year prior, Bomar had thrown for 2,018 yards and 10 touchdowns as an 11-game starter.
Then the Sooners’ young defensive coordinator and linebackers coach, Venables had spent three years as the primary recruiter for Bomar, and wasn’t thrilled about booting him off the team.
“I'm like, hold on, can we just suspend him a couple games?” Venables questioned, raising his hand as if he’d done the same in the coaches meeting all those years ago. “And you know which games I was thinking, like ‘those games,’' he added with a chuckle, likely considering a couple dud non-conference matchups.
Of course, that was before then-Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops set things straight, as he would 15 years later in the interim role following Riley’s departure and leading into Venables’ arrival.
“And Bob, he's like... ‘I gave (Bomar) three opportunities,’” Venables said. “‘He was dishonest. I gave him some grace, and he was still dishonest.’ ... Bob's had a career of doing what's right. And what a great example that was for me at that time.”
Clemson coach Dabo Swinney set the example again in 2012 during Venables’ first season as the Tigers’ defensive coordinator. Back then, Venables felt like he was “being baptized” during spring practice with a star-studded team including offensive weapons DeAndre Hopkins, Sammy Watkins, Andre Ellington, Adam Humphries and Jaron Brown — each of whom played in the NFL.
Near the end of fall camp, a bump surfaced in the middle of the road.
Swinney chose to suspend star wide receiver Watkins for a “wrong place at the wrong time” off-field incident ahead of Clemson’s season opener against Auburn. Even worse, the game was scheduled to take place in Atlanta, and there was a prevailing stigma among Clemson fans that their team couldn’t win there.
Venables again raised his hand, looking to defend Watkins in favor of alternative punishment. Perhaps a nonconference game suspension against lowly Ball State would do, he thought. But Swinney “stuck with his guns,” upholding the suspension, and Clemson went on to beat Auburn 26-19 without Watkins anyway.
“It was just another affirmation for me,” Venables said. “I have countless examples like that, and I’m telling you, I was on the wrong side of it. It’s easy when you’re sitting over there as an assistant… but anyway, I’ve had a lot of examples, been scarred up, lots of experiences.”
Venables’ purpose in retelling those stories was to acknowledge he wasn’t fully equipped to handle adverse situations in the past. From behind the podium inside the Barry Switzer Center, he hollered “Timber!” and imitated jumping off a cliff, or maybe a mountaintop, when describing his composure during the Bomar debacle.
“Everybody loves the mountaintop experience,” Venables said. “Nobody likes to be down in that valley, and that's a tough place to be as we know … through all that it kind of sharpens you up and equips you, and I’ve had amazing people be great examples.”
Thanks to what Stoops and Swinney taught him, Venables believes he’s better equipped for adversity now.
Another of Venables’ contemporaries, former Kansas State head coach Bill Snyder, was notorious for cramming 15 practices into four weeks leading up to the Wildcats’ spring game. Venables noted the 34 days until his team’s April 23 spring game is the shortest spring practice he has observed behind Snyder’s.
Fewer days doesn’t necessarily equate to fewer opportunities for trouble, but Venables stands ready for any bumps in the road.
“As we just look ahead, I'm anticipating Murphy's Law,” Venables said. “But Murphy's getting ready to get beat down, that's what I know. (We’re) just preparing for adversity, and that's just our mindset.
“You know it's comin’, whether it's as a program, or certainly for our players and their day to day battles for spring ball. Not everything is gonna go like we want. But again, just getting our guys with the mindset of ‘Oh yeah, you said that was going to happen.’ Good, because we know that's where the real growth happens.”
