Why is OU rebounding so well after Riley’s departure?

As the 2022 Oklahoma soccer season wound down, it was changing into painfully obvious that this wasn’t the identical Big 12 dominant Sooner staff followers have been used to seeing in latest seasons.

You wouldn’t discover it that a lot within the last season document — over the past three seasons the Sooners have gained 12, 9 of 11 within the 2020 pandemic season, and 11 video games final season — however they weren’t profitable as handily or as decisively as previous Oklahoma groups.

Last season alone, six of OU’s wins have been by seven or fewer factors. The Sooners lacked the killer intuition to place groups away after they had opponents on the ropes. As a consequence, the Sooners completed third within the Big 12 standings a 12 months in the past, snapping a string of six consecutive convention championships.

The disappointing 2021 season wasn’t a query of the absence of expertise. Oklahoma definitely had loads of that. There was undoubtedly an imbalance between the staff’s offensive power and its defensive functionality, however the Sooners have been nonetheless capable of come out on high in most of its video games, though greater than half of the video games might have gone one other method and left OU with as few as seven or eight wins and an total document barely above .500.

The level being, for the primary time in fairly some time, Oklahoma appeared mortal and extra susceptible that it had in a while. And it was on that backdrop, on the finish of November, that all the backside appeared to drop out.

Less than 24 hours after shedding their last regular-season recreation at Oklahoma State, surprisingly misplaced their head coach, Lincoln Riley, who elected to leap ship and head out West to take the vacant job at USC.

And that was just the start of the falling dominoes. Riley took half of the OU assistants with him as well as a number of key Sooner gamers who selected to comply with him to his new vacation spot.

Just like that, the lingering considerations concerning the state of Oklahoma soccer was elevated to a complete one other stage of concern and uncertainty.

Brent Venables was the No. 1 goal from the get-go

As Riley exited stage proper, OU athletic director Joe Castiglione went into fast coach-search mode, however he did so absolutely intent on touchdown the person he knew was not solely the right match however the proper alternative on the proper time for the job.

Enter Brent Venables.

Venables was one of many Sooners’ personal. Yes, he spent a decade because the defensive coordinator at Clemson, however earlier than that he was in the identical function at Oklahoma for 13 extremely profitable Sooner seasons underneath Bob Stoops. That in itself made Venables a extremely in style rent among the many Oklahoma fan base.

Venables actually hit the bottom operating on Dec. 5, 2021, and he hasn’t stopped but. His hearth and vitality and his passionate character has re-energized the Sooner locker room. He has invested an ideal period of time strengthening the relationships between the teaching workers and the gamers and among the many gamers themselves.

The new Oklahoma head man has executed an excellent job of building his imaginative and prescient of getting the Sooners turn out to be a assured, bodily, robust, blue collar work ethic-type staff that competes at a really excessive stage. You might see popping out of spring observe and getting into fall coaching camp this week that the Sooner gamers are comfy with the adjustments so far and are approaching observe drills with the identical toughness, high-energy and aggressive nature mirrored within the character of their head coach.

So why is it that the Oklahoma soccer packages is doing so well after it appeared eight months in the past that the sky was coming crashing down. There are two prime causes:

The first is the Oklahoma soccer model, one of many strongest in all of faculty soccer. Bob Stoops mentioned it finest on the time of the press convention following Riley’s departure announcement:

“There’s not one guy, one person in the history of the (Oklahoma) program that’s bigger than the program, (that includes) Coach Switzer, myself or Lincoln Riley.”

Sooner followers are a number of the most passionate within the nation, and there is an simple profitable tradition at Oklahoma. One sports activities columnist had this to say concerning the OU teaching change: “Oklahoma football made Lincoln Riley. Lincoln Riley didn’t make Oklahoma football.”

The different motive, maybe much more apparent, is they employed completely the proper man to take the reigns as the following Oklahoma head coach.

As at all times underneath AD Joe Castiglione, the Sooners discovered their man

The transformation is underway, and it is refreshing and reassuring to witness.

And Venables isn’t doing it on their own. You’re solely pretty much as good because the folks you encompass your self with.

The twenty third head coach of Oklahoma soccer has assembled a crack defensive workers after Riley decimated that facet of the teaching workers. And in the event you ask me, the brand new guys in Norman have higher credentials than those that left. At the identical time, Venables was capable of retain then complete offensive teaching workers, together with longtime OU assistant Cale Gundy, who works with the huge receivers, and Bill Bedenbaugh, top-of-the-line offensive line coaches within the faculty recreation.

Under Stoops and Riley, Oklahoma had stored the expertise pipeline flowing with a lot of top-10 recruiting courses. Venables already is making his mark in that space. With the assistance of former head coach Stoops, he stabilized and secured a No. 10 OU recruiting class for 2022 and is recruiting at an especially excessive stage this summer time in filling out commitments for the 2023 class.

What’s additionally spectacular concerning the Sooners’ 2023 class, apart from the amount and expertise stage, is its steadiness, with extremely touted recruits on each offense and protection. OU’s 2023 class at the moment ranks No. 6 nationally, based on 247Sports.

While admittedly shocking and surprising at first, the teaching change really comes at an excellent time and for all the proper causes. Although his phrases spoke in any other case, Riley clearly was not dedicated to Oklahoma long run, and to be completely sincere, his Sooner soccer staff was changing into too static and predictable and had misplaced its edge.

Venables’ ardour about Oklahoma soccer by no means left him even whereas he was at Clemson. And now the previous Bob Stoops assistant is again the place he actually belongs.