“Hard to kill,” the motto coined by the 2025 Sooners that became synonymous with their late-season success, will not be the headline for the 2026 season, head coach Brent Venables made clear on Monday at the 2026 SEC Media Days in Tampa, Florida.
Instead, those three words have become etched into the DNA of OU’s football program, a staple of the brand of football Venables wants his teams to play and not just a one-off motto that changes season to season.
“What is that 'hard to kill'? What does it mean?” Venables said. “It means all the things that we want to be about as a program, having some stick to us, having a program built on toughness. … We play in a game today where, again, the margins are incredibly small. Winning is incredibly challenging; … each and every week is going to be a bloodbath. … The most physical football teams win at the end of the day. That's what it's all about. There's no substitute for being physical.”
Entering his fifth season as head coach of one of college football’s most-storied programs, with OU holding seven national championships, Venables has the opportunity to lead his squad to back-to-back 10+ win seasons and back-to-back playoff appearances, success that the program hasn't seen since the 2018-19 seasons when the College Football Playoff featured four teams.
The road back to the playoffs remains one of the hardest across the nation for the Sooners. They enter the season with both the No. 2 overall strength of schedule and one of the toughest six-week stretches to open the season that includes Michigan, Georgia and Texas.
In the midst of yet another tough Southeastern Conference slate, OU’s identity won’t be defined by slogans or preseason hype. It will be defined in the trenches. A year after finishing near the bottom of the country in rushing, Venables made it clear Monday that physicality is no longer optional. It’s the baseline for becoming a true SEC contender.
“We got to have the toughness that goes along with that,” Venables said. “That's really where we have focused our time here in the offseason, for us to be a championship team, for us to be in that conversation at the end of the year. It puts tremendous pressure on every part of your team when you can't consistently run the football. … At the end of the day, … we've got to run the ball a hell of a lot better.”
One of the biggest questions of the season was whether Venables could put together an offense to pair with his highly-ranked defense. He certainly thinks there’s improvement on that side of the ball that could lead to the lethal pairing OU has searched for during his tenure.
“At the end of the day, I think we've addressed and improved every one of the positions from the guys that are in the room, …” Venables said. “We've transformed the wide receiver and the tight end room. We’ve got five really good backs. Up front, we probably have nine guys that can play winning football for us right now.”
What once sounded like a slogan now is now meant to be a standard. And for OU, that standard will be tested immediately, with a brutal early schedule leaving little room for anything less than toughness.
“We've got a lot of work to do. We're not a very good team yet,” Venables said. “We have a lot of foundational pieces that we're really excited about. There's a tremendous eagerness. You learn a lot through a year ago. Some of it's affirmation and belief. … There's a confidence and a momentum that comes from the success from the season as well as the way the season ended — the disappointment. I think the hunger of this football team is there. I think the motivation to put themselves in the conversation down the road, the willingness to do the work that it takes to put ourselves in that position down the road too.”
This story was edited by Joshua McDaniel.
