Oklahoma BOR President: Brent Venables is NOT on the Hot Seat

Oklahoma Board of Regents president Rick Nagel has made it clear that head football coach Brent Venables isn’t going anywhere.

In a meeting on Tuesday morning announcing the extension for OU baseball coach Skip Johnson, Nagel stated, "The board doesn’t typically comment much on what’s going on in the athletic department. That’s maybe a smart thing, but I want to say this … our head coach, Brent Venables, is not on the hot seat. We just extended the contract."

Any questions? That’s pretty cut and dry.

If you’re someone that’s ready to move on from Venables right now, you’re going to have to keep on waiting. Even if the Sooners wanted to replace him tomorrow, they literally cannot afford to do so.

This offseason, athletics director Roger Denny awarded Venables a brand-new extension through 2032. The buyout sits at $51.67 million, which Oklahoma can not pay someone that type of money to not coach.

The math ain’t mathing, some would say.

The pressure to win in college football has never been higher. Midseason coach firings have become commonplace. In the last two seasons, we’ve seen major programs make changes after a slow start like Florida State did with Mike Norvell, or last year at Penn State with James Franklin and LSU with Brian Kelly.

That is not how Oklahoma operates.

The Sooners’ administration is going to give Venables every chance to succeed. Although this season hasn’t gone the way anyone would have liked, you can’t deny the success he had last year leading Oklahoma to 10 wins and a College Football Playoff appearance.

Since 2024, Venables has gone through the offensive coordinators. In that stretch alone, he’s moved on from Ben Arbuckle, Joe Jon Finley, and Seth Littrell. The blueprint is there though. Whether it was Jeff Lebby’s run in Norman as the Sooners’ playcaller or last year with Arbuckle, if the offense can just be functional, Venables can field teams that compete among the best in the country.

It also is worth pointing out that Venables is running a clean program, is well liked and respected, and treats people well. This is a guy who people want to see succeed, and who isn’t going to be chased out of town at the first sign of things getting tough.

This is not to say that everything is going to work out. There might come a time when the Sooners don’t achieve their goals that Venables was tasked to do, forcing them to make a change. That day is not today.

It is completely fair to criticize Denny for bidding against himself, giving Venables an unnecessary extension. However, the situation simply isn’t a quick fix with a change at the head coach position.

The Sooners have made their bed with Venables, now they have to sleep in it.