Oklahoma Sooners head coach Brent Venables enters Year 4 on the job facing a make-or-break season in Norman. Year 2 in the Southeastern Conference will be very telling for both his future as a head coach and for the future of the program as a whole.
OU is just 22-17 overall since Venables took command three seasons ago. A 6-7 mark in 2022 was rough. A 10-3 campaign in 2023 gave hope for the future. But, another 6-7 record in 2024 has made 2025 a critical year for the Sooners.
Venables is 0-3 in bowl games, even while playing in mid-tier bowls. The Sooners haven’t been to a New Year’s Six bowl since 2019, their last year in the College Football Playoff. Despite a 4-0 record in nonconference games a season ago, Oklahoma went just 2-6 in the SEC. That means the Sooners only had three wins against Power Four competition in Venables’ third season.
The schedule next season actually looks more difficult than a year ago, with the same league opponents but different locations and the Houston game replaced by a visit from Michigan instead. OU’s other three nonconference games (Illinois State, Temple, and Kent State) should be layups, but nine tough contests still await.
Put the lackluster results with a brutal schedule along with the ever-changing climate around college football, in which Oklahoma seems to be falling behind under Venables, and you have a head coach who may be under more pressure than just about anybody in 2025.
That’s what 247Sports’ Brad Crawford believes. He ranked the head coaches who are under the most pressure next season and Venables topped his list. He was followed in order by Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy, Florida State’s Mike Norvell, Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell, and LSU’s Brian Kelly.
Each of the other five coaches on the list are proven commodities who need to bounce back in a big way. Gundy has been in Stillwater forever, winning the Big 12 in 2011 and playing for the league title in 2015, 2016, 2021 and 2023. But a 3-9 season in 2024 has his seat a bit hot.
Norvell took FSU to a 13-1 record in 2023 when the Seminoles were denied a College Football Playoff berth by the committee. But everything came crashing down in shocking fashion in 2024, meaning he’ll have to prove himself again in 2025. Fickell took Cincinnati to the CFP in 2021, the first (and only) team outside of a power conference to do so in the four-team playoff era. But, his time at Wisconsin hasn’t gone as planned as the Badgers haven’t broken through in the Big Ten. Kelly coached in a national title game in 2012 while at Notre Dame and took LSU to the SEC title game in 2022. But a somewhat disappointing 2024 season and a loaded roster for next year have him under the gun. Plus, Marcus Freeman, his replacement in South Bend, took the Fighting Irish to the national championship game in 2024. But Venables, on the other hand, doesn’t have that track record as a head coach. He’s never made the CFP, never won his conference, never made a conference championship appearance in three years. He’s had a losing record, an unheard-of thing in Norman, Oklahoma, in two out of three seasons. He’s been more John Blake than Bob Stoops so far. But Venables also has time to turn things around. One season, to be exact. He might be under more pressure than any other head coach in the sport, but he’s been given his chance to prove himself as OU’s head football coach.