Brent Venables acknowledges Oklahoma fell “incredibly short” of expectations last year. He can talk philosophically for days about the culture of Sooner football and building his program. But he needs to win in Year 2, writes max_olson.
“We’re trying to bring a new perspective. We’re trying to bring life,” Bowen said. “Like, we went 6-7. We don’t wanna do that again. We want to bring in a winning culture, set the standard high, and just bring back Oklahoma.”Here’s one way to size it up: The Sooners never trailed in their six wins and never held a lead in three of their seven losses. The difference, then, between going 6-7 and 10-3 mostly comes down to close games in November.
“Last year, as you look at it, we really had a pretty dang good season,” Gabriel said, “but we didn’t finish in the crucial situational football.”One flaw that stood out to Gabriel and Lebby through the self-scouting: too many second-and-long and third-and-long plays. They could hit explosive plays on first down, including 45 of 20-plus yards , but it was the times they’d get stuck in second-and-8-plus that killed drives. That happened 171 times last season, according to TruMedia.