Oklahoma’s Red-Hot November Pushes Them Into the Playoff Picture
NORMAN - Brent Venables isn’t the kind of coach who leans on analytics to fire up his team. But after a gut-punch loss to Ole Miss in late October, he made a rare exception.
He walked into a team meeting, pulled up ESPN’s College Football Playoff Predictor, and showed his players the odds. If they won out in November - a month loaded with heavy-hitters - their playoff chances shot up to 92%.
That number wasn’t just a stat. It was a challenge.
“I’m not really like that,” Venables admitted after Oklahoma closed out a perfect November with a gritty 17-13 win over LSU. “But I think our guys needed a shot in the arm and a vision for what is in front of us if we just put our head down and go have a great Monday practice.”
That vision - and the urgency behind it - sparked something. The Sooners didn’t just respond.
They rallied, recalibrated, and ripped off four straight wins against a gauntlet of opponents: Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, and LSU. That run didn’t just salvage the season - it might’ve defined it.
Turning Point in Oxford
The 34-26 loss to Ole Miss on October 25 felt like a season-ender. But in hindsight, it may have been the moment that brought everything into focus.
Venables described it as a “circle the wagons” moment - a time to regroup, reset, and remind his team who they were.
“We lost a tough game that night against a really good football team,” he said. “We had our opportunities, and the game teaches you a lot of hard, tough lessons.”
Those lessons didn’t fall on deaf ears. Defensive end Gracen Halton said the team took Venables’ message to heart.
“Having a coach like BV, he’s reminding us every day in team meetings that we just keep on going,” Halton said. “No matter what happens, we’ve just got to overcome, and that’s what really the whole season was about - just overcoming.
The harder schedule, that don’t matter. It’s just football.
If we come ready to play, we can beat everybody.”
A New Standard
It wasn’t just Venables who helped steer the ship back on course. Safety Peyton Bowen pointed to a pivotal pregame speech from assistant coach Kevin Wilson before the Tennessee game - a moment that helped redefine the team’s identity.
“Coach Wilson came up to us right before Tennessee and talked to us that we create the standard,” Bowen said. “The standard was here, but you create your standard for Team 131.
Asked us if we had been playing up to that? That talk hit us way different - more than the postgame Ole Miss talk.
Ever since that talk, it’s been head down, foot on the gas.”
That mindset shift showed up on the field. The Sooners didn’t just win - they battled, they clawed, and they found ways to finish.
Now, with the regular season in the rearview and a playoff spot secured, the Sooners are taking a well-earned breather before the CFP Selection Show on December 7. But don’t mistake rest for complacency.
“We’re going to take a couple of days off, get a couple lifts in,” Venables said. “We’ll have a couple of young-guy practices, 12-period practices, and get our bodies and our minds and our spirits where they need to be.
But man, I’m super thankful to be their coach. They just got the right stuff - all the stuff that you can’t put a price on, you can’t put a measuring stick on, these guys got it.”
From 6-7 to the CFP
For players who weathered the storm of last season’s 6-7 campaign, this moment hits different. It’s not just about the wins - it’s about the journey.
“So many guys could have quit, could have left,” Bowen said. “The guys that stayed here and kept going, working in the spring, summer - and what it’s all come to - it’s so inspirational and touches and moves me about how much I want to play for this team, day-in, day-out.”
This team didn’t just bounce back. They built something.
Something tough. Something resilient.
Something playoff-worthy.
And now, they’re not just in the conversation - they’re in the dance.