Brent Venables’ Oklahoma Sooners suffered their second loss of the season on Saturday, at the hands of Ole Miss, 34-26. After the loss, the Sooners head coach expressed a lot of hurt and pain for the team dealing with the defeat, as they fell to 6-2 on the season.

“We didn’t coach ‘em good enough,” said Venables. “I hurt for the guys. They’re hurting right now.” 

For Sooners’ fans, Saturday’s loss was too familiar of a sight. Ole Miss handed Oklahoma their 19th loss of the Venables’ era. After four seasons of pain and suffering during Venables’ tenure, when will it end?

I’m not going to sit here and go the James Franklin route, and already recommend his firing after losing a couple of games, when expectations were super-high as a top five team. However, Sooners fans deserve better, and they deserve answers on how things are going to change.

The Oklahoma Athletic Department is going to give Brent every chance to succeed. They have invested in him, his staff, and given him all of the resources he could possibly need to compete in the SEC, even in this NIL-era. 

If you ask every Sooner fan if this program is on the right track, there isn’t going to be a consistent answer. Not everyone is bought-in, and rightfully so until things change in the win column.

There is reason to be optimistic when you have a GM like Jim Nagy, as well as an emerging offensive coordinator in Ben Arbuckle. The defense looks great, and you have a very-capable quarterback in John Mateer. All signs point to a lot of those key pieces returning in 2026 as well.

With all that said though, eventually the results have to show for it. Oklahoma is a proud program, and rightfully so with seven national championships. The fanbase obviously wants to see this team compete for championships again, but if not now, when Brent, are we going to see you step up and take this team up a level to be a contender?

The next few weeks will be telling, with one of the toughest schedules in the country. While a trip to the College Football Playoff is unlikely this year, Venables and company need to inject optimism and finish things on a high-note. It is up to him to convince this fanbase that he is the right man for the job, and that the program is moving in the right direction.