College football coaches can survive a lot if the wins keep coming. A strong overall record, regular trips to the postseason, a program that looks stable on the surface - that usually buys plenty of patience. But there’s one thing that can turn all that goodwill into a short leash fast: losing to the rival everyone cares about most.
That’s the backdrop for Oklahoma coach Brent Venables, who enters this season needing to handle Texas and improve on his 1-3 record against the Longhorns. If he doesn’t, the pressure only gets louder.
And he’d be in familiar company. Plenty of successful coaches have built impressive résumés, only to see their jobs unravel because they couldn’t win the games that mattered most to their fan bases.
James Franklin at Penn State is one of the clearest examples. His overall mark there was 104-45, and he helped steady the program after the post-Paterno chaos.
But his 1-10 record against Michigan and Ohio State told a harsher story. Franklin won a lot of games, just not enough against the Big Ten’s top powers.
Rival losses weren’t the only issue, but they were a major part of why he was pushed out. Now at Virginia Tech, he won’t have that same two-headed rival problem, with just Virginia and West Virginia on the calendar.
John Cooper’s Ohio State run followed a similar script. He went 111-43-4 overall, which is the kind of record most coaches would love to hang on the wall forever.
But against Michigan, he was 2-10-1, and that kind of imbalance is impossible to ignore in Columbus. His bowl record didn’t help either - 3-8, including a 24-7 loss to unranked South Carolina in the 2001 Outback Bowl, which ended up being the final straw.
At Georgia, Jim Donnan gave the Bulldogs a needed reset after the Ray Goff era and left the program in solid shape for Mark Richt. Still, his 5-7 record against Auburn, Florida and Georgia Tech hung over the job. Three straight losses to Georgia Tech were too much for Bulldog Nation to stomach, even with Donnan’s overall success and his eventual Hall of Fame status.
Brian Kelly’s LSU tenure also fits the pattern. His overall record there was 34-14, but he went just 2-6 against Alabama and Texas A&M.
The source material makes clear there were plenty of reasons his dismissal came when it did, but failing to stack up against those two programs clearly left a mark with LSU boosters. Kelly also rubbed a lot of people the wrong way from the start, and the rough beginnings to his seasons didn’t help.
Still, beating the teams LSU fans hate most might have softened a lot of that.
Then there’s Mike Gundy at Oklahoma State, whose 170-90 overall record raises a different question: how did he last so long? His tenure came with plenty of tense moments and facepalms, but the defining number is the 4-15 mark against Oklahoma. For all the swagger, he couldn’t deliver in the game that mattered most to Cowboys fans, and that’s the piece that lingers.
In Other News...
Sarkisian Just Landed The Kind Of Texas Recruiting Win That Lasts
Texas has spent the summer stacking its future, and the latest addition gives Steve Sarkisian another building block on the offensive line. The Longhorns already sit with a top-five 2027 recruiting class, and the push to keep that momentum going has centered on adding size, talent and long-term stability up front while the staff also works to fortify the line with experienced transfers for 2026.
This latest win matters because it is the kind of recruiting victory that can shape more than one season. The player at the center of it arrives with the sort of national profile that usually brings a long list of suitors, and Texas had to hold off multiple heavyweight programs to get it done. Even more important for the Longhorns, the expectation is that he could be in position to help sooner rather than later, giving Sarkisian a chance to turn a future commitment into an immediate part of the conversation. [Read more 🡒]
DeAndre Moore Jr. Is Already Carrying Major Weight For Colorado's Offense
Colorados offseason makeover has been impossible to miss, with Deion Sanders and his staff continuing to reshape the roster through the portal while also reworking the coaching structure around it. The Buffaloes have added a wave of newcomers for 2026, and the arrival of wide receiver DeAndre Moore Jr. stands out in a group that is already drawing attention for how much it could alter the offenses identity.
Brett McMurphys ranking of Moore among the Big 12s most impactful transfer additions only adds to the intrigue, especially with Brennan Marion now running the offense. Colorado did not bring in a player like Moore just to blend in, and the next question is how quickly he can become the kind of central piece this staff clearly expects him to be. [Read more 🡒]
Arkansas May Have Found The One Way To Test Texas
Arkansas has spent the offseason remaking itself from top to bottom, and that matters for Texas because the Razorbacks are no longer just trying to patch holes. With a new general manager, Ryan Silverfield taking over as head coach after winning 29 games over the last three seasons at Memphis, and new coordinators in place, Arkansas has paired all of that turnover with a heavy transfer portal haul. The result is a program that looks very different from the one Texas has handled the past two meetings, when the Longhorns won both games by a combined 25 points.
For Texas, the bigger question is whether the usual formula still holds if Arkansas can speed the game up and force a different kind of contest. The Longhorns are still projected to sit near the top of the SEC, but they also had some trouble creating explosive plays last season, especially on the ground, which makes the matchup worth watching well before 2026 arrives. Arkansas has added playmakers such as Sutton Smith and Chris Marshall, while Texas has worked to add more burst of its own, so the path to an upset may come down to whether the Razorbacks can turn this into a shootout instead of letting Texas dictate the terms again. [Read more 🡒]