Oklahoma made its move on Brent Venables before the 2026 season even began, and now the timing looks painfully bad.
Two weeks before kickoff, the Sooners handed Venables a two-year extension that runs through 2031 and pushed his salary to roughly $10.5 million per year, placing him among the 10 highest-paid coaches in college football. Athletic director Roger Denny called it “managed risk” at the time, arguing that Oklahoma needed to stay focused on the upside instead of getting trapped by fear of the downside.
“It’s managed risk,” Denny said then to defend the decision. “But I would tell you, I can’t -- I have to be aware of what our worst-case scenario is.
But ultimately, for us to have success, I have to plan for success, right? I have to put our program in a position to be ready at every opportunity to not be so cautious about what the downside is that we all miss the upside.
“And so I’m certainly aware of it, and I’ve got to have an understanding of what it would cost if we got to that point. But at the end of the day, if I’m so focused on the downside, we’ll never realize our upside.”
A month later, that logic is looking a lot shakier. Oklahoma is 2-2 heading into its bye week, and there’s little evidence the season is about to straighten itself out. Venables still has a strong defense, though it isn’t at last year’s level, and the offense remains stuck in the same familiar rut despite an offseason push to fix it.
That’s the frustrating part for Oklahoma: this doesn’t feel like a one-off. It feels like the same script again.
The Sooners were blown out by Georgia 41-13 in their SEC opener, and the road ahead is brutal. Their remaining eight-game SEC schedule includes six ranked opponents. Upsets happen, but if Oklahoma can’t find one, the season could spiral to 4-8 and end with the program missing a bowl game for the first time since 1998, before Bob Stoops ever wore an OU visor.
That kind of finish would also deepen a pattern under Venables that’s hard to ignore. He has followed every 10-win season with a losing record, and if this year ends at 4-8, he’d have three losing seasons in five years at Oklahoma. That would tie John Blake for the most by an OU head coach in the modern era.
Blake was fired after his third such season. Venables’ situation is different in one obvious way: his bad seasons have been separated by 10-win campaigns, and he has also been rewarded with contract extensions after both of those successful years, even after the losing seasons that came before them.
If Oklahoma finished 4-8, Venables’ head-coaching record would sit at 36-28. In conference play across the Big 12 and SEC, it would drop to 20-23, a .465 winning percentage in the games that tend to matter most.
There’s still time left, of course. Nine weeks can change a lot. But right now, bracing for a 4-8 finish looks more realistic than waiting for the success Denny said he was planning for.
At a place like Oklahoma, a third losing season in five years would normally trigger a hard conversation about the coaching job, especially if it ends up being Venables’ worst season yet after he arrived with national title expectations.
The problem for OU is that the cost of moving on has become a major obstacle. The buyout has not been released since the extension, but it would be higher than the $34.9 million figure attached before the new deal.
Firing Venables would mean paying that number, then paying to get a replacement out of his current school, then going even higher to win a bidding war if another program wants the same coach. That new coach would also need enough money to build a roster capable of winning in the SEC.
Oklahoma didn’t need to get itself into this spot. If the Sooners had met expectations and returned to the College Football Playoff, an extension would have made sense.
No one was lining up to poach Venables. But if the concern was that waiting might make the deal more expensive later, the other side of that gamble is clear now: losing is expensive too.
Denny has made Venables nearly impossible to fire, no matter how this season unfolds.
Oklahoma tried to bet on itself and wound up looking like it bet wrong.
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For Oklahoma, the Greenman hire brings another basketball voice into the room, while Godwins return adds a familiar face with a direct connection to the program. Former Sooners players often bring a useful blend of institutional memory and practical support when they come back in off the floor, and Godwin steps into a role that can matter just as much behind the scenes. It is the kind of staff tweak that does not grab headlines for long, but can say plenty about how Moser wants the operation to function. [Read more 🡒]
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For Oklahoma, this pause is less about resting up and more about confronting the uncomfortable realities that have slowed the season. The quarterback room is still learning on the job, and the line has not consistently protected the passer or created room in the run game, which leaves the offense fighting uphill on nearly every series. A bye week can help clean up details, but it can only do so much when the larger problems are still sitting there in plain view. [Read more 🡒]
Oklahoma Gets Another Shot At Georgia With Old Pain Still Lingering
Oklahoma is about to get a fresh crack at Georgia, and the timing makes this one feel bigger than a first-time regular-season meeting. The Sooners and Bulldogs have crossed paths only once before, in the 2017 College Football Playoff, when Georgia beat Oklahoma in double overtime and left plenty of lingering sting on the Oklahoma side.
Now the series gets a new chapter, with a regular-season matchup finally giving the Sooners another chance to measure themselves against a program that has been a painful memory for nearly a decade. Even with a different setting and different stakes, this is the kind of game that still carries a little extra weight for Oklahoma fans and plenty of attention around the matchup. [Read more 🡒]