Not everyone is buying Brent Venables’ 2023 optimism

Even before last weekend’s spring game, there has been optimism about Oklahoma’s 2023 football season. also known as Year 2 Brent Venables coaching time at OU.

Given Oklahoma’s long history of success in college football, it’s not surprising that glass-half-full members of the wide-serving Sooner fan club would find something good in the unusual 2022 season.

It’s true that the Sooners were pitifully bad, losing two Big 12 games by an average of 40 points, but they also lost four games — four of the last five of the season, by the way — by no more than a field goal. And a competitive battle against OU on the 13th. against No. 1 Florida State — the latter playing at near full strength when the Sooners were without their top quarterback and several key players on defense — lost the game with a game-winning field goal with less than a minute to play. the game provided a lot of positive momentum going into the next season.

“It feels like we’re not living up to our standards and expectations,” Venables told fans attending Oklahoma’s spring game Saturday and the media in an interview afterward.

The OU head coach immediately admitted that “there are no excuses to justify the kind of season we had. Internally, we know we fell short in a lot of different places.

“The way the season goes really tells the story,” Venables said, “but we made the improvements we need to make and there’s still a lot to develop and improve for sure. This was a step (last season’s growing pains) that needed to be made.”

So what have the Sooners done to improve? For starters, Venables and his staff signed an incoming recruiting class that was one of OU’s best in recent memory, ranked No. 4 nationally by both ESPN and 247Sports. It is also in the top 10 category of the transfer portal.

Much of the upcoming talent was on display at the annual Oklahoma Red-White Spring Game last Saturday. Coupled with returning players on the roster who now have a year of experience in the new system under their belts, there was a lot to like in the spring game, especially on the defensive end. (You can check out Brandon Self’s article earlier this week for deeper insights and observations from OU’s spring game.)

You can also add in the 2023 schedule (ranked 48th toughest in the ESPN College Football Power Index), which looks to be very favorable for the Sooners next season. OU won’t be playing Baylor, Kansas State, for example, two teams that have been real thorns in Oklahoma’s side in recent seasons.

“We’re evaluating (all of this) every step of the way,” Venables said last Saturday. “After this, you feel, well, the task is accomplished. We got better, we got better.

He said there’s definitely reason to feel better.

While many college football pundits and analysts are saying similar things about Oklahoma’s rebound prospects this fall, not everyone is buying, not yet.

Count ESPN analyst and self-proclaimed SEC homie Paul Finebaum among those skeptical of Oklahoma’s prospects for improvement this coming season.

“I’m deeply concerned about the trajectory of Oklahoma,” Finebaum said Tuesday on the “McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning” radio show. I talked to a local columnist and I didn’t get a good feeling about that show.

“There just seems to be a concern that in the aftermath of Lincoln Riley, they can quickly put the pieces back together. It did a tremendous amount of damage.

“No one is convinced that the Brent Venables hire will work.”

It should be noted that Finebaum has had a notorious bias against Oklahoma football for some time. He was directly critical of the Sooners and Bob Stoops, especially after Stoops said the SEC wasn’t much better than the Big 12 when you look outside the Alabama, Georgia and LSU of the world and consider the totality of both. leagues, top to bottom.

Finebaum has also been cynical about how Oklahoma and Texas will fare when they become full members of the SEC starting in 2024.

Whether you’re an Oklahoma football fan or not, there’s bound to be an argument on both sides, and you’ll see that debate continue throughout the summer months as the countdown continues toward the start of the new college football season.

But until the Sooners show on the field, when the games are real, that the issues have been addressed and the ship has indeed been righted and steered in the right direction again, the critics will continue.