Mike Hired Again Ou Venables Sooners

EDITOR'S Note: This is Part 1 of a three-part serial today after Brent Venables has been hired as head football motorcoach at Oklahoma.

Chuck Long remembers meeting a young, fresh-faced Brent Venables for the showtime time in the Switzer Center. Fifty-fifty 22 years afterwards, the moment withal resonates.

"He simply was full of enthusiasm," said Long. "When you shook his manus, it'south like you'd known him for twenty years. He's merely one of those guys. And not everybody's that way."

Long was hired to mentor quarterbacks on Oklahoma's 2000 coaching staff, and in 2003 became the offensive coordinator. On Sunday, he and other erstwhile colleagues told SI Sooners they were glad to hear Venables would be coming home to Norman.

Brent Venables

Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

"Oh, I'yard not surprised he's been named to new head bus at Oklahoma," said Jackie Shipp, who was the defensive line coach then. "I know it was probably always his goal to be a caput charabanc. And he had all the intangibles and things that one needs to be a caput bus there."

"I'm happy about it," said then-offensive line autobus and offensive coordinator Mark Mangino, "that's for sure."

Venables, who turns 51 on Dec. eighteen, had simply turned 28 when Bob Stoops hired him as linebackers jitney and co-defensive coordinator in December 1998.

Now, 23 years later on, Venables is the 23rd caput double-decker in the history of the OU program.

"He fabricated yous feel comfy, welcome," said Long, who was introduced equally the Sooners' new quarterbacks coach after Mike Leach took the caput coaching job at Texas Tech following the 1999 season. "You lot know, here'southward a co-defensive coordinator, and he says, 'Hey, welcome to the family, skilful to come across you!' "

Venables and his brothers were raised by their mother in Salina, KS. In high schoolhouse, he was named Class 5A defensive role player of the twelvemonth past Kansas Sports Magazine. Afterwards two outstanding seasons at Garden Urban center (KS) Customs College (he earned All-American recognition), he walked on at Kansas State as a smallish merely fearless linebacker.

In Manhattan, Venables became honorable mention All-Big Eight in 1992.

"Every bit a thespian, he was undersized," Mangino said. "But boy, was he tough. He was a difficult-nosed guy, he played with enthusiasm. He wouldn't dorsum down from anybody. He was only a hard-nosed competitor."

Those were among the many qualities so Kansas State defensive coordinator Bob Stoops saw in a young Venables — qualities that convinced Stoops to tell Bill Snyder he needed to add Venables to the coaching staff.

"I know for a fact motorcoach Stoops went to (Snyder) and was like, 'Brent's my guy. That'south who we desire to hire,' " Venables told Oklahoma media before the Orange Bowl in 2015. "I went through all of leap ball, all of summertime, to fall camp, then he gives me a contract for $33,000 and says, 'We'll see what yous practice.' "

Brent Venables

Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

The remainder is history: Venables coached three seasons as a graduate assistant, three more as full-time linebackers omnibus and then migrated to Norman to join the Stoops brothers after the '98 season. He was co-defensive coordinator with Mike Stoops from 1999-2003, and when Stoops left for Arizona at the finish of the 2003, Venables was paired equally co-defensive coordinator with Bo Pelini in 2004.

In 2005, after Pelini left for LSU, Venables was finally and fully in accuse of the OU defence. He was the coordinator until Stoops returned from Arizona following the 2011 season.

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Opposite to popular opinion, Venables wanted to stay in Norman. He agonized over it, reportedly even calling Bob Stoops from his layover en route to Clemson to talk it through. Just he realized that the best manner he could evolve as a jitney and spread his coaching wings was to practise it apart from those who had given him his foundation.

"Loyalty is a trait that Brent has had all of his life," Mangino said. "That goes hand in paw with how he treats people the right way, he tries to do the right things all the fourth dimension when dealing with people. And I could see his loyalty to Bob, that wouldn't surprise me at all. That's how he operates. He's big into loyalty. That's why he puts his family unit first ahead of career decisions, because he's loyal to his family and he wants to do the correct matter for them, too."

Painful equally it was, to abound every bit a coach, Venables had to leave the Stoops nest.

"The impression I got from Brent," Mangino said, "he only felt like it was time to go out there and practice his ain thing and prove to himself that he tin can run a defense by himself and be successful at it. From my conversations with Brent and Bob during that time, Brent didn't have to get out. Mike and Bob wanted him him to stay. Bob really wanted Brent to stay and thought it could work.

"And Brent said, 'No, information technology's just time. Yous know, it'south merely time. Fourth dimension to become accept on a new challenge for me and meet if I can exercise this myself.' Plainly he was pretty darn successful at information technology."

Brent Ven

BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff-Greenville

In commanding i of the nearly ascendant defenses in higher football over the concluding decade, Venables has won two national championships at Clemson under Dabo Swinney. The Tigers too made the College Football Playoff Championship Game twice (losing to Alabama and LSU), won six straight ACC titles and posted a 120-17 overall record — one of the best decades in college football history — with Venables every bit the defensive coordinator.

"Very hard worker," Shipp said. "Very knowledgeable. Kind of a go-getter guy. A lot of intensity. High-energy person."

That energy has made Venables semi-famous if only for his sideline gyrations on game days. At Clemson, Swinney even assigned a "become-back coach" to Venables to make sure he didn't get penalized for being too far out on the field during play.

Just that's only on game days.

"I think he was more than at-home in the staff room, if y'all tin can empathize that," Shipp said. "I think it was more than calm in there. I think the intensity and different things you saw were on the field, in games or in practice. Only the staff room, information technology was more than even-keeled, smoother pace. What's the word I desire to employ? I gauge competition or battle, that's the time that you all saw the faces, the moving around, the bouncing around and all those types of things."

Anyone who's ever met Venables also knows he's actually a warm and friendly person with a biting sense of sense of humor. His wife Julie, sons Jake and Tyler and daughters Delaney and Addison would adjure to that. So would his coaching pals.

"One of the nearly personable guys I've ever worked with, been with and have known," Long said. "His enthusiasm, positive enthusiasm, I thought went a long way toward building that defense with Mike Stoops, without Mike Stoops, and of course at Clemson, what he'south done at that place.

"Only having him on the staff, I thought, was actually skillful for the entire staff."

I vital aspect Bob Stoops instilled quickly at OU: family. He scheduled family nights in the coaching office every other week (sometimes every week) so the staff could get to know each other on a more personal level. That made the investment real.

Venables thrives in those settings — and beyond.

"He would just go out of his fashion to get to know you, become to know your family," Long said. "Which really extended over to his — he was an first-class recruiter. He would build relationships the right way with recruits.

"I believe information technology's gonna be a not bad, not bad hire. Because he does take that recruiting enthusiasm," Long continued. "It's really all about — that's a big chunk of it, that recruiting enthusiasm and getting kids to hop over a agglomeration of states to come to Oklahoma. That's gonna be large, and Brent'due south the correct guy to exercise that."

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Source: https://www.si.com/college/oklahoma/football/oklahoma-coach-brent-venables-rebuilding-the-sooners

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