What Brent Venables had to say during his first Big 12 media day press conference

I’d also like to congratulate and recognize our players, too, that have earned the right to be here today: Dillon Gabriel, quarterback; Marvin Mims, our wide receiver; Ethan Downs, our defensive end; Woodi Washington, one of our cornerbacks; and Justin Broiles, one of our defensive backs as well as a Big 12 champion. Congratulations to Justin. – Brent Venables

As y’all can imagine, the last seven and a half months there’s been a lot going on in Norman, Oklahoma. You only get one opportunity, one chance to be a first-time head coach and to do things right the first time. We’ve been very patient and have tried to nurture through the process foundationally of building our program the right way, through relationships, through accountability, through structure, through discipline, and certainly there’s been a lot of things from recruiting, building a staff, doing some new things from a facilities standpoint, transitioning from being an assistant to a head coach. Every day there’s something new, as y’all know, whether if you just take yourself back to those moments when you went from elementary school to middle school, or you went from middle school to high school and the transition and all the things you learn. Sometimes you’ve just got to go through it. When you went from being single to being married, when you went from not having any children to having children, and you kind of learn as you go. That’s what the last seven and a half months have been like for me. I feel very prepared for this moment. I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve been associated and been a part of programs where to me there’s three Hall of Fame coaches that have influenced me in Bill Snyder at Kansas State, Bob Stoops at Oklahoma, and I know without question that he will be a Hall of Fame coach in Dabo Swinney at Clemson. I’ve been really fortunate to be around a lot of great people, tremendous football players that have helped me get here to this moment, and I couldn’t be more excited. It’s been just like you would expect, the fire hose is fully inserted in my mouth here, and we’ve been blowing and going. I’m really excited to get back with the team now as summer is coming to a close and we’re getting ready to start up fall camp here August 4th, but having an opportunity to be around the players all summer, and what I love about this game that I’m associated with is the true transformation both inside and out that happens on these young guys’ journey. I’m blessed beyond what I deserve to be a part of those journeys, but I’ll open it up for questions. – Venables

This year, this version of the Oklahoma Sooners 2022 Team, 128 will comprise 40 percent of our roster will have never put on a Sooner jersey in a game before until this fall. So 33 scholarship players and 15 walk-ons, 15 of those guys, two of them were walk-ons and 13 scholarship are the transfers. But with those, we have 243 starts out of those 15 transfers, 444 games played, because I know a lot will be and has been made of how much we lost on both sides of the ball from a production standpoint. Jeffery Johnson has 44 career starts; Dillon Gabriel, 35 career starts; Trey Morrison, 44 career starts; Kyle Ergenbright, 34 career starts; McKade Mettauer, 28; Jonah Laulu, 18; and our tight end, Parker, 25 career starts. I’ve got six back on offense. We’ve got six back on defense.

Well, that’s a great question. There are certainly parallels in many ways, bringing in an experienced lefty in our first year. But to me it goes back just to the people. You’ve got to be good enough. Dillon Gabriel is a winner. You can’t say it any better than that. He’s thrown for 8,000 yards, completed over 60 percent of his passes, incredible touchdown-to-interception ratio, just a great leader. He’s our quarterback. Certainly anything can happen as we move forward through fall camp. It’s always about daily competition. But I feel great I can lay my head down at night knowing not just what he has done on the football field but the quality of the person he is. He’s about all the right stuff. He’s dependable. He’s reliable. He’s accountable. He’s humble. He’s one of the hardest workers, shows up early. He’s last one to leave. Always working to improve. And he leads by example, and guys follow him. He’s a galvanizer of people. – Venables

There’s been buy-in at every position on both sides of the ball. I would be remiss if I just named a few guys. And certainly the five guys that are here today have earned the right as leaders, as guys that have invested, as guys that have been about it. I talk about be about it, quit talking about it. I want guys that are going to be about it. I’m looking for doers, not takers. And these guys here today represent a great locker room of a bunch of great leaders. – Venables

I learned a long time ago from Bill Snyder, the grass isn’t greener, and I always believed that. He said it, and I believed it. I wrote it down, and that was in my Coaching Bible 101. I was a baby of three boys in my own family, and I learned from my older brothers’ mistakes, if you will, and I tried to do the same thing as a young coach to — I never learned how to be great in two places at one time. And to be great as a football player, you’ve got to have your feet underneath your hips. You can’t have your feet way out here outside of your shoulder pads. And to be great in any profession, I believe wholeheartedly you try to be great right where you’re at. I’ve just been a very loyal, patient person that tried to learn from others, but I think that also comes back to just trying to be very thankful and appreciative of the opportunities that I have. I’m loyal to my players, loyal to the colleagues, loyal to the people that have believed in me, and that has served me well through my career. – Venables

Countless opportunities to evaluate new opportunities, but there’s only — this was a very special opportunity for me. Oklahoma has been near and dear to my heart. I left in a very emotional state when I left Kansas State to come to Oklahoma, but my last words to Coach Snyder, as I was still learning and I had a ton of growth ahead of me, and as I told Coach Snyder, I wanted an opportunity to coach at a place like Oklahoma. It’s a special place. It’s the winningest program in the modern era, the most championships, conference championships in the history of college football with 50, the only program since 2000 that has not had a losing season in the Power Five. So winning is very hard. Being consistently at the top of your game is even harder. So Oklahoma has exemplified that both on the field and — probably for me and my peace in making the decision — off the field from a leadership standpoint, from an alignment standpoint. So whether that starts with Joe Harroz, our president, who was the dean of the law school when I was there for those 13 years, or Joe Castiglione, who hired Bob Stoops, and I was a part of that initial staff back in 1999, and so many countless others, whether it’s Larry Naifeh or Zac Selmon and so many people in the administration. And then what Oklahoma has stood for. My life has all been about the people that I’ve been associated with, that have helped me along the way, Bob Stoops, Joe Castiglione, Larry Naifeh, certainly Joe Harroz and so many amazing football players at Oklahoma. And certainly the other stops that I got there, but I’ve had so many of those former Oklahoma players that have helped me get to this moment. I have 17 former players on my staff. So, again, I’m going to be about it. That’s what I’ve always — I’ve been a very connected person my whole life, and it’s always about the people. The people always make the place, but Oklahoma is a special place, and so it was — when everything got right and I knew that I was going to be supported the way that I feel like I needed to to be a successful head coach, it was a no-brainer. It was a slam dunk. – Venables

And our guys have bought into that, and that’s what I love. There’s an innocence about this locker room that I’ve really, really grown to love. But the work, the commitment and the hunger as well as the self-awareness, and it’s one thing — because nothing is more, for me as a coach, more discouraging than somebody that doesn’t want to be coached, somebody that thinks they have it all figured out or somebody that has an overinflated opinion of themselves. We have a lot of humility, a lot of toughness, a lot of hunger in that locker room. So that gives you, from a foundation standpoint, a reason to believe that, all right, that’s where it all starts, it’s attitude, it’s mindset to get it started in the right direction. – Venables

It’s obviously another rival. It’s one of the most storied and tradition-rich games in all of college football, played in the great City of Dallas in the Cotton Bowl. A lot of history and tradition there. I know that rivalry very well and what it means to so many people. The emotion and intensity of it and the momentum that can come from that game. Everything has its time but we go head-to-head a lot for obvious reasons in recruiting and program development. But I’m looking forward without question as I know they are to going down that ramp. – Venables