NORMAN – Many Oklahoma fans agree with the football coach Brent Venables on one thing.

“I know at the end of the day, losing three in a row is really bad,” Venables said this week. “It stinks.”

Yes. The coach and fan base see eye to eye on that.

The Sooners are mired in a three-game losing streak, and it’s the second time it’s happened under Venables — after 24 years without such a hideous blemish.

Oklahoma had become the shining city on a hill for college football programs looking for consistent wins. In the Big 12 Conference, Bob leaned over and Lincoln Riley combined for 14 league championships in 21 years. What other college major can say that? Not Alabama, not Ohio State, not Michigan. Not Georgia, not Texas, and certainly not USC.

But here sits Venables, with a 20-14 head coaching record, just 3-5 against AP Top 25 teams and three chances before that — at Missouri next week, Alabama in Norman the game after that and at LSU on Nov. 30 — to make that recording better or worse.

Venables’ career hitting percentage is now .588. For comparison, Gary Gibbs‘ was .652 (44-23-2).

Venables’ career certainly drew parallels with Gibbs’s. Gibbs was a former OU linebacker turned defensive coordinator and was hired to bring his by-the-book stoicism to a program in need of a post-season cleanup.Barry Switzer era. Venables was a former OU linebackers coach turned defensive coordinator and was hired to focus on a program that needed a cleanup in the post-Lincoln Riley era.

Gibbs’ only sin as Oklahoma’s coach was that he couldn’t beat Nebraska, Colorado or Texas, going 2-15-1 against the Big Three. Outside of those 18 games, his six-season career record was 42-8-1, or .833. Switzer won 83.7 percent of his games. Stoops won 79.9 percent.

But no one outside of Gibbs’ immediate family would suggest the Sooners were headed in the right direction under his leadership.

Through 2 2/3 seasons, the same must be said of the Sooners under Venables.

Championships are the standard at Oklahoma, not incremental improvements. And so far, that’s all Venables has.

“We’re a lot better defensively and we’ve definitely made a big improvement in our kicking game,” he said.

And the offense is historically bad — the only real problem in a season where a shocking upset in November is the team’s only hope of continuing a 24-year bowl streak.

Hey, losses happen. But OU’s four losses this year are all by double digits. Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina and Ole Miss combined to outscore the Sooners 120-41. Oklahoma led the Rebels 14-10 at halftime in Oxford, but games against the Vols, Longhorns and Gamecocks — two of those in Norman — ended at halftime.

Venables also points to the improvements in the offense since 2023 compared to his rookie year in 2022. Offensive Coordinator Jeff Lebby he had another year under his belt, Dillon Gabriel he was a year closer to becoming a Heisman front-runner for a national championship contender (Oregon, not Oklahoma), and the OU offense’s efficiency and explosive numbers were better.

But faced with hiring a new OC and breaking in a new QB, Venables and his staff sputtered. Seth Littrell was not the answer and Jackson Arnold it did not develop. OU’s coaching staff this season is “falling incredibly short” — Venables’ words.

Venables shouldn’t be blamed for the injuries to his top five receivers. This is the kind of blind shot that no one could have seen coming. But if OU even had all five back this season, would it have been enough to beat Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina and Ole Miss? May be.

But everyone saw the lack of offensive linemen on the roster when Venables returned to Norman and chose to keep Bill Bedenbaugh as an offensive line coach. A more serious, more determined effort might have produced better results from either the high school recruiting ranks or the NCAA Transfer Portal. Instead, the Sooners’ inside linebacker has lagged behind the outside linebacker for three straight years, and now the offense is tied for the worst line in school history.

By the way, it’s not a subjective complaint. Empirical data shows that Oklahoma leads the nation by far this season with 39 quarterback sacks. Since OU began keeping that stat in 1992, the school record for sacks allowed, set in 2015, was 41. That mark could be broken at halftime of Saturday’s 1:30 p.m. contest with the Maine Black Bears.

OU is also last in the nation in yards per play at just 4.27. Only the 1961 (3.8) and 1965 (3.9) Sooners averaged less than this year’s team.

And this OU team is averaging just 3.05 yards per rush. That’s 124th in the nation this year (out of 133 teams) and would set a new school record in a stat dating back to 1947.

No, Oklahoma isn’t going in the right direction — unless backward is a direction.

Venables is right. The defense is better. Alley Zac he was a good hire as a defensive coordinator. But Ted Roof it wasn’t. However, Venables addressed this and fixed it. But Danny Stutsman and of Billy Bowman the decision to return were huge parts of an improved defense. How good will this unit be next year when other front line players leave as well?

Special teams are better under Doug Deakin than they were under Jay Nunezalthough Deakin is actually allowed to coach players under the new NCAA rules, while Nunez was not. So it’s probably a push.

In the big picture, after going 6-7, 10-3 and now 4-4, Oklahoma has gone in circles.

That Joe Jon Finley and Kevin Johns and Jackson Arnold move on and try to improve this offense – neither of them are getting or giving any assurances that they will be here in 2025 or beyond – the future is bleak. The 2024 schedule remains one of the toughest in the nation and gets tougher next year as the Sooners face the same SEC opponents and also host 2023 national champion Michigan.

And realistically, Arnold was recruited by Lebby. Does he want to stick around next year to play for a third different QB coach and offensive coordinator? Michael Hawkins professed his love for OU, but could have nothing to do with the new OC. And future decisions of Arnold and Hawkins attract 2025 QB? Kevin Sperryor do you make him nervous? And if the new OC insists on his own o-line coach, how does that impact the impressive offensive line recruits in the classes of 2024 and 2025 who signed up to play for Bedenbaugh? What other current players could return if their coach is sent packing? Finley signed the #1 tight end (Davon Mitchell), DeMarco Murray signed runner no. 1 (Taylor Tatum), and Emmett Jones he was masterful at wideout touchdown prospects.

“For a lot of obvious reasons, which you’ve all probably reported on over the last few weeks, there’s been a drop off in our offensive production — a dramatic drop off this season,” Venables said. “But I believe in the young talent we’ve recruited and the guys coming up in the future and our ability to help recruit and improve our roster in the current landscape. We recruited really well going into the fourth grade and then again, I like the guys on our defensive staff and the things that Zac has put together with the other guys on our defensive staff. (They) did a tremendous job and really kept us in every game, gave us a chance.”

That statement offers a glimpse into Venables’ mindset — that he’s a defensive coach at heart who never thought about how the offenses at Kansas State, Oklahoma or Clemson performed. That was always someone else’s problem. He had enough on his plate.

But now the whole table belongs to Venables—heck, the whole dining-room: every plate, every cup, every fork, every plate has his fingerprints on it. His focus needs to be holistic, and for $8 million a year, he needs to be more of a CEO than he was. Never, at a school with the resources of Oklahoma, should the offense (or, dating back to 2016-18, the defense) be among the worst in the country.

Venables showed a touch of power and ownership earlier this week when asked if he had spoken to the athletic director Joe Castiglione about the firing of offensive coordinator Seth Littrell.

“I told him what I was going to do,” Venables said. “I hadn’t spoken to him about what he thought or didn’t think about it – when I called him, I made the decision. It was great.

“I had to make a tough decision two weeks ago to help us improve. And I think he did. But time will tell.”

He said he meets with Castiglione weekly and talks to him throughout the week as “normal protocol.

“He’s the best in the business. He’s been through a lot, both good and bad, and difficult situations where, being in this profession, the coaching profession, collegiate athletics, he has a lot of wisdom that he can guide all of us coaches here at this university.”

Asked if he felt he had Castiglione’s “vote of confidence” to get the football team out of its current malaise, Venables didn’t hesitate.

“Yes, absolutely,” he said. “He has a good perspective. He knows things, whether it’s a great alignment in perspective of what we’re dealing with. So that’s the extent of the conversations. He lives and dies in the moment of the season, like a coach would, but being a great support vessel.”

OU will beat Maine, and the Sooners will probably look really good doing it. In seven previous meetings with FCS opponents, the average score was 62-4.

But this team doesn’t need wallpaper or window displays. It needs real improvements. To borrow from Venables’ frequent mantra in Year 1, there might not be a need to “strip her down to the studs”, but there is some rot that needs to be removed. OU football has good bones, but the Sooners are competing in a new neighborhood now. The foundation is strong. But the front porch (crime) is dilapidated and the place could use a new roof.

What this team needs right now is more reps, more snaps, more practice. To get that, they’ll have to stun Mizzou, or ‘Bama, or LSU to get to six wins and qualify for a bowl game. Then, they’ll get 15 more postseason practices — and maybe then, some real improvements can be made.

Venables doesn’t think so, of course.

“We’re on a three-game losing streak — hey, let’s get back on track,” he said. “Let’s start to build a little bit of momentum and maybe feel a little bit better. Winning heals a lot and having some success builds confidence.

“If we make improvements and get some guys back, and maybe we can build on some of the success we’ve had — not enough, but some of the success — to have a chance to put a string of wins together to end the year. . It will be hard, it will be a big challenge. It is doable. That’s our goal.”