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Venables has kept ship steady

It doesn’t take long for a season to go off the rails. Especially when the expectations are massive like they are on a yearly basis at Oklahoma.

One loss turns into two. Fingers start getting pointed. Locker room gets divided. Dysfunction a-plenty begins to follow the program. Just take a glance around the country. More programs are in disarray than feeling good about themselves right about now.

That division, though? No, it’s not in Norman. And if it hasn’t happened yet, you’re allowed to have a strong belief it never will because of first-year head coach Brent Venables.

Look, nobody is saying it’s all sunshine and rainbows with a 4-3 record, but even during that three-game losing streak, you didn’t hear of people packing it in or tuning out Venables.

If OU was going to face the worst start of its season in more than 20 years, then maybe it’s fitting Venables is the one leading the charge.

Because if anybody is going to help get the Sooners out from under this hole, it’s the first time head coach. He was built for this.

“He’s talked to us since day one that he was going to be in the A-gap with us, win or lose,” running back Eric Gray said. “Good or indifferent, he was going to be there. He’s been a man of his word. He’s been there the whole time, even when we lost a couple of games. He was still the same guy every day bringing the juice. Definitely thankful for him.”

OU went from 3-0 to 3-3 overall and an 0-3 start to Big 12 play. The joy was back, for at least one afternoon, following OU’s 52-42 win vs. Kansas less than two weeks ago to put OU at 4-3 entering its only bye week.

The postgame dancing returned. If anything, that moment was earned after going through that brutal stretch to begin conference play. Everybody understood what it took to have that type of celebration once again.

Those first three conference games were weeks people in Norman just don’t know, cannot comprehend after the years and years of continued success. It could have gone from bad to terrible in the blink of an eye.

The phrase ‘BV never flinched’ kept being uttered. Maybe there was something to it.

“I think it was dang-near everything,” linebacker DaShaun White said. “I don’t think any of us have ever been down three straight – especially with an organization like this. It was one of those things where we needed a big-time leader to bring us out of that.

“Coach Venables never flinched – not once – at any moment. I feel like that did a lot for us. I feel like if we had lost seven straight, it would have been the same from him. I think that’s just who he is. Really grateful to have a leader like him.”

Venables has stressed about how everything matters. When he responds to the setbacks and adversity with that can-do attitude, it’s noticed. It resonates.

“He makes the rest of us leaders on this team jobs a lot easier when you have someone like him and you can look and know exactly how you need to approach the day,” White said.

It couldn’t have been easy, but Venables did what he always does. He went to work. He’ll often mention how you have to respect the game. You can’t cheat it. There are no shortcuts. You get what you earn, and you just keep pushing through.

It’s the same mentality he said he had for all those years as an assistant coach. Rough times, same support system he’s leaned on this whole time from Bill Snyder to Bob Stoops to Dabo Swinney to his wife, Venables didn’t feel lost about the situation or that the world was crumbling around him.

“Whether you’re the head coach or coordinator or player or position coach, to me, I don’t get too far away from what that formula looks like and what it takes to win and be successful,” Venables said. “Oh, now you’re the head coach, it takes something different? No, it doesn’t. Everything matters, though. When you’re dealing with young people, they’re gonna feed off of you.”

Five more regular season games to try to make it right, to get better. The buy-in doesn’t feel as if it has slipped at all. If the players continue to feed off the BV energy, it’s going to get turned around. That first step is Saturday at Iowa State.

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