Newest coaching hire for Oklahoma Sooners set to be Brent Venables' right-hand man for crucial 2025 season
The 2025 season is a pivotal one for Brent Venables after having two losing seasons in three years, and he's leaving nothing to chance. Venables played a major role in the Oklahoma Sooners hiring Jim Nagy as general manager and bolstering their front office, but the biggest changes came with his coaching staff. Gone are […]
The 2025 season is a pivotal one for Brent Venables after having two losing seasons in three years, and he's leaving nothing to chance.
Venables played a major role in the Oklahoma Sooners hiring Jim Nagy as general manager and bolstering their front office, but the biggest changes came with his coaching staff.
Gone are 2024's coordinators, Seth Littrell and Zac Alley, one fired and the other fleeing overnight. In their place, Venables pursued hotshot rising coordinator Ben Arbuckle, who coordinated one of college football's best offenses at Washington State last season. To replace Alley, Venables took over defensive play-calling and bolstered his defensive staff with two new additions: Nate Dreilling, who will coach inside linebackers, and Wes Goodwin, who will coach their outside linebackers and Cheetahs.
However, with Venables now leading the defense, he needs someone he can rely on to help him manage the game and handle the duties of also being a head coach.
Enter Kevin Wilson.
Wilson served as the head coach of Indiana from 2011-16 before becoming offensive coordinator at Ohio State from 2017-22, where he guided numerous Playoff offenses and players, before becoming the head coach at Tulsa in 2022. He was fired from Tulsa this offseason.
However, he and Venables go back to their days together under Bob Stoops. Wilson was the offensive coordinator for Oklahoma's record-setting 2008 offense that saw them reach the national championship game. He and Venables played key roles in establishing Stoops as the greatest head coach in program history.
Wilson has joined Venables' staff as an "offensive analyst," but according to Brent Venables, he will be involved with everything and will be a major figure in helping Venables manage the game.
“Kevin will be a part of everything. He’ll have involvement with me and things I need to be heads up with. He’ll be involved with the offense, too. We have analytics, and that information is nonstop. Somebody is saying that nonstop to me about things we have to be aware of and consider, or if this happens or that happens and be prepared to make X decision. We’ve already played a lot of those scenarios. You might have said in the first quarter, if this happens then this is what we’re going to do. You’ve already played the game before you get to game day.”
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This is a boon for Venables and a tremendous resource for the Sooners to have. In 2023, Venables was able to lean on analyst Matt Wells, who provided much the same valuable input that Wilson will be. When Wells departed to be the offensive coordinator for Kansas State, that void was felt last season.
For Venables, bringing in a coach who has been in multiple high-stakes games in his career and has decades of experience to lean on is another sign of how seriously the staff takes this season. Venables's words could also be a sign that the Sooners are fully beginning to assemble a robust analytics staff to assist in game management, similar to the style that Notre Dame made popular this season.
The Oklahoma Sooners have the talent to compete for a national championship in 2025
Despite a down 2024 season, the Oklahoma Sooners are primed to rebound in the upcoming season on the back of several strong recruiting classes and talented transfer portal pickups. Throughout 2024, it felt like the Sooners lacked the high-end talent necessary to compete with the top teams across the country. However, they are in a […]
