Days after Oklahoma’s 49-0 loss to Texas last season, Brent Venables offered a proposition to his players and coaches.

When it would’ve been easy to quit given the Sooners’ worst shutout loss in Red River Rivalry history, their first-year head coach passionately pointed to a hypothetical door as an answer for anyone in the program who didn’t believe.

“Look, if there’s anybody now who’d like to tap out…” Venables said at a barbecue joint just off campus where he tapes his weekly show. “Anybody that wants to leave, I’ll help you leave. … I’ll escort you to the door right now…. You’re either all in or you’re not. The best is the standard all the time, not when it’s convenient and easy.”

A year later after the Sooners’ 34-30 win over Texas on Oct. 7, not only is the path to the Big 12 Championship Game and College Football Playoff seemingly convenient and easy, the coach’s message was equally blunt.

“Celebrate hard, don’t celebrate long,” he said of his postgame message “We’ve got to get back to work.”

While the Sooners (6-0, 3-0 Big 12) captivated the nation and catapulted into playoff consideration, Venables wasn’t satisfied. However, the buy-in on display throughout OU’s program that day in Dallas was recognizable to Hall of Fame coach Bill Snyder and Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, two of Venables’ mentors and closest confidants in football and life. Both spoke to OU Daily about the magnitude of such a win, the momentum it can generate and what they see the friend and former colleague building in Norman.

The victory — against OU’s chief rival, in that venue and in that fashion — was not only a spectacle, but also proved Oklahoma under Venables isn’t as behind the Longhorns as many thought as both schools prepare for their transitions to the SEC next year. For a team that limped to a 6-7 finish a year ago and took on 17 transfer portal additions in the offseason, it was ahead-of-schedule proof of Venables’ vision, culture and effectiveness.

“That’s the type of game,” Swinney said this week, “that early in your career can put a lot of wind in your sails as far as creating the buy-in to what you really, truly believe in and what you’re convicted in.”

The win also affirmed the belief university president Joseph Harroz Jr. and Athletic Director Joe Castiglione saw when they hired him. Through six games in year two, Venables has quieted any lingering naysayers as the Sooners control their destiny, rank No. 2 in ESPN’s college football power index and boast the No. 8-ranked total team defense nationally.

During its bye week at the halfway point of Oklahoma’s season, Venables made sure his team remained focused on the work ahead. The Sooners practiced all week, participated in a service project in which players built over 200 beds for foster kids across the state and took a much-deserved weekend off.

A fervent keeper of notes, Venables said he looked back last week through his files all the way to the 1998 season when he was a linebackers coach at Kansas State under Snyder. He wanted, he said, to reflect on how they managed bye weeks and what has changed.

“Everything’s changed…” Venables said of managing the bye week and through the season, though the same could be said of the expectations that now surround his team. “You want to be smart about letting them recharge and refocus, renew their mind, their spirit, their bodies, and at the same time get work done fundamentally.”

Venables lives those habits himself, planning his work days by the minute, not wanting to waste time he could put into building the program into what he envisions.

Off the field, it’s a different story. Swinney jokingly calls Venables “definitely the worst driver out of all the coaches” he’s ridden with, noting he nearly died on a trip in Hawaii where Venables was behind the wheel and that on more than one occasion in South Carolina he got a call to tow Venables’ boat because he had run out of gas somewhere out on Lake Keowee.

When he’s focused on football, however, his trademark intensity has always been laser focused.

“He has a strong belief in daily improvement, which is really significant,” Snyder said. “In that, he recognizes that there isn’t any reason why any one individual can’t become a little bit better each and every day. And that’s significant to him and significant in the way he works with his players. He has tremendous self discipline and that carries over to his players.”

‘He’s got great conviction in what he believes’

In over 30 years in college football, Swinney has learned a thing or two about building something that lasts.

To get to where you want to be, he knows you have to endure tough times, like Venables did last season. His awareness dates to when he was a sophomore wide receiver at Alabama and Gene Stallings was hired as head coach.

The Crimson Tide started Stallings’ first season losing three straight games by a combined eight points and fans in Tuscaloosa were ready to fire him on the spot. Over the next seven years, Swinney watched — first as a player, then as a GA and finally as an assistant — as Stallings won 70 games and a national championship.

“What I learned at that time was what I’ve tried to always live by,” Swinney said. “And certainly what I’ve seen in Brent and that is, when you’re convicted in something, you’re going to have ups and downs, but when you really believe in what you’re doing, you have to stay the course.

“And that’s the biggest thing. I think he’s got great conviction in what he believes and what he wants it to look like. We’ve had a lot of talks about that. And there were certainly some growing pains last year and there’ll be more, it’s just part of it. But, it was really awesome to see him win that game. Because you need it especially early in your career.”

Sometimes it takes close games against good teams or a single major win, like the win against Texas, to show players proof the system and culture a new head coach is implementing works.

For Swinney, that contest came in 2010 against Cam Newton’s Auburn Tigers, who went on to win that season’s national championship. In his second full season at the helm, Clemson seized a 17-0 lead on the road before losing by a field goal in overtime, a gritty performance that he says provided him with proof of conviction and helped lay the seeds of the kind of program he wanted to build.

“Even though there were pitfalls and there were some challenges and we weren’t perfect,” Swinney said. “I could see kind of the foundation taking place of what I knew could happen and then we went from there … I think that’s what Brent is trying to do. Again, you’re going to have some years better than others, but what you’re trying to do is be consistently competitive, to where you can create the type of mentality that it takes, the competitive stamina it takes to be a great program year in and year out.”

It’s apparent Venables brought a lot of Swinney’s strategy with him from Clemson to Norman. The two men are deeply faithful and utter nearly identical preacher-like sayings.

But what they share the most is their belief in their philosophies and what it takes to be successful not only in football, but life.

While Venables isn’t dwelling on the Texas win as Oklahoma prepares for its second half schedule — its first-half opponents are a combined 21-16, where as its remaining opponents are a combined 24-14 — it’s a valuable win for the future.

“It just creates a lot of buy-in to what he’s trying to instill there,” Swinney said. “Brent’s a winner, he’s always been a winner and he’s one of the best people that I know. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him and again, he’s not going to compromise and I think when you win a game like that (it’s huge.)

“ … It pushes you forward and then you’ve still got to navigate. There’s still going to be some storms. You might have to move the sails over, the wind might blow in a different direction but at least you’re moving forward and I think that’s what a win like that does. It’s a huge momentum boost, especially early in the season.”

‘He’s a very strong leader’

Each time this season Venables coaches during practice or a game, meets with his staff or speaks with reporters, a pink bracelet wraps his left wrist.

It symbolizes the fight his wife, Julie, is waging against breast cancer after being diagnosed this summer. It’s an ordeal that would tax any family, much less one in which one spouse has an all-consuming job of reconstructing a roster through the transfer portal and urging players who didn’t commit to him out of high school to buy-in to what he’s preaching.

Venables has been through his fair share of tough moments during his coaching career and Snyder and Swinney say those experiences are again helping him lead people through difficult times.

Venables’ mother, Nancy Schumaker, died during Oklahoma’s 2005 season and in the span of two days in 2011, Venables lost a linebacker he coached, Austin Box, to an accidental overdose and his brother Kirk, who was 43.

“It’s a matter of being strong and understanding that stuff will happen so to speak, and things are going to happen to each and every one of us,” Snyder said of how he’s watched Venables navigate such tests. “And then the important thing is to be there for others and knowing that we’re not the only ones that go through some difficult times and be able to to help others when they have difficult times and be able to be strong enough to manage the difficult times.”

Swinney has a more recent vantage point on the matter as his family and the Venables family grew close during their time at Clemson. Tyler Venables, Brent’s youngest son, is a senior safety for the Tigers this season.

“It’s been a tough situation for sure,” Swinney said. “We’re very close to the situation and Julie, doing life with them since 2012. So it’s a tough situation for everyone. But Julie’s amazing, she is definitely the rock of that family. Without a doubt. And Brent has always been a guy that can compartmentalize what he’s doing at the moment but it’s certainly a huge challenge.

“She is amazing, she’s incredibly courageous and brave and strong and I think that gives them all strength as well. Watching how she’s attacked this thing head on. I’m sure that it’s some tough, long days, but I think football has probably been a blessing for Brent. To be able to have something to really pour into each and every day, just to probably take his mind off of things that he’s dealing with Julie.”

As a husband, father and coach, Venables’ leadership is as evident as ever. After most home games this season, Venables has often been seen posing for photos with his daughters on the field. Snyder, from afar and through weekly texts with his former pupil, sees the same caring person he first got to know as a hard-nosed player at Kansas State.

“He’s a very strong leader,” Snyder said. “… He’s good at overcoming difficult situations and a difficult environment and I think that probably comes from his determination. He was a very determined young man. There is mental toughness in athletics, and he certainly possesses that. He’s just a guy that will never give in, regardless of what the circumstances are.”

‘The portal is a blessing’

Venables has taken little bits of knowledge from Snyder and Swinney, as well as Bob Stoops, who he played under for two years at Kansas State and coached with for 16 years with the Wildcats and Oklahoma. He’s a blend of each of them, yet also carving his own path with conviction.

After a disappointing first season as a head coach, Venables hit the portal aggressively. He wasn’t just searching for depth or talent, however, he wanted players who fit the culture he’s building in Norman.

Venables’ strategy differs from Swinney’s, who has notably avoided using the portal to build his rosters in recent years for fear of disrupting the family-style culture he’s worked to build with high school recruits. Venables has seemingly figured out how to blend both, signing the highest-rated recruiting class in program history. He also landed three top-50 portal players — edge rushers Rondell Bothroyd (Wake Forest) and Dasan McCullough (Indiana) and offensive lineman Walter Rouse (Stanford). Everyone in the program gets the same message: This is Oklahoma, where nothing is given and everything is earned.

For example, McCullough, who was a freshman All-American a season ago, was not named a starter after fall camp but has excelled in the wake of the season-ending injury suffered by the original starter at cheetah, Justin Harrington.

In a rare shift in philosophy, Swinney told the OU Daily he sees the portal as a plus for new head coaches like Venables to swiftly collect talent and begin to build a program.

“The portal is a blessing for any new coach that’s taken over a job,” Swinney said. “Whether it’s a good program or a program that is struggling because it allows you to turn your roster over quicker than you would normally before the rules changed. … You have another tool as opposed to just high school or junior college, you do have another pool of players that you can draw from.

“Where you can build your roster quicker to allow you to compete because again, it’s an available tool and it’s something that has to be done in today’s world to be able to manage your roster because of the mobility that these kids have.”

Oklahoma offensive line transfers Troy Everett (Appalachian State) and Caleb Shaffer (Miami-Ohio) have also seen playing time after being left off the starting depth chart. Michigan transfer wide receiver Andrel Anthony led OU in receiving before his season-ending injury.

“We tried to find leaders, guys that were accountable, guys that were starters and maybe something about Oklahoma attracted them, maybe there was a coaching change,” Venables said of the portal newcomers during the bye week. “Maybe what they were doing scheme wise they weren’t being utilized as much, something that would make sense as opposed to (something else). We wanted to make sure they came here for the right reasons, that they understood if they came here, this is Oklahoma and there’s going to be competition, they’re going to have to earn what they get and so all those things, those are the intangibles that we really evaluated.”

While his mentors’ blueprints are all over Venables’ program, his evolution from them demonstrates Venables’ drive and sense of never being satisfied.

In fact, Swinney said it reminds him of a particularly special night — Jan. 7, 2019, in Santa Clara, California. Specifically, when the Tigers held a 44-16 lead over Alabama in the national title game.

Swinney told Venables pregame he had a good feeling about the outcome.

With 10:02 remaining in the game and knowing the Tigers were about to secure their second national championship in three seasons, Swinney directed his team to run the ball and the clock out.

Venables, the Tigers’ defensive coordinator, continued game planning — arms crossed and still scowling — while Clemson drove the field with 8:30 left.

Swinney trudged over and gave Venables a playful shove and a smile and said, “Hey man, I told you.”

“Not yet, not yet, not yet,” Venables pleaded with his deep, raspy voice.

“Oh, it’s yet,” Swinney said.

“It was a fun moment,” Swinney said. “That’s classic Brent.”

Coaching hard, as it were, before he’d even think about celebrating long.