OU football coach Brent Venables changed offensive coordinator for his defense, too

NORMAN — When Brent Venables announced the change at offensive coordinator last week, he made a comment that was simple on its face but complex in its meaning.“My responsibility,” he said, “is to the whole team.”That means the defense as well as the offense.On Tuesday, during the OU football coach’s weekly press conference, I asked Venables if the offensive coordinator change was done as much for the defense as the offense. His defense. A defense that Venables expects to play at a high level regardless of the circumstances, but a unit that had been under a tremendous amount of strain.Was he seeing the defense start to be affected, and did he feel like making a change was important to get them back into a good headspace moving forward?More: OU football practices more 'professional' under Sooners' OC Jason WittenVenables paused.For three seconds, he said nothing.“Yes,” he finally said.The emphasis he put on the word said a lot, but then, Venables said more.“As hard and difficult of a decision as that was,” he said of firing Ben Arbuckle, “I know nobody wants me to say this, but from ‘24 to ‘25, we got better in 24 categories. It was incremental improvement. It was enough for us to combine with the rest of our team to go to the playoffs. “But at the same time, in closed-door meetings, it was, ‘It can’t look like this next year. … This ain’t good enough, and it’s got to be more than incremental.’”The offense, of course, didn’t make incremental improvement. It regressed.While the decision to replace Arbuckle was made to better the offense, the improvement that Venables hoped to achieve went beyond that side of the ball. He did it for his defense, too, because the way it performed against South Carolina was a big red flag.The cracks were showing.The defense was teetering.Venables had to know he might be on the verge of losing that side of the ball.“The players,” he said, “they see everything. Not necessarily always listening, but they watch everything.”And for the first couple of months of the season, what the defense players saw was Venables demanding a high standard from the defense and accepting a lower standard from the offense.No matter how much he and the defensive staff expected their players to fight and strain and play hard no matter what the offense was doing, that’s a near-impossible ask. Human nature kicks in. Mental doubts creep in.If the offense isn’t playing to that high standard, why should we?We saw the result of that against South Carolina. OU allowed 521 yards of offense and six touchdowns, including passes of 84 and 79 yards. The Gamecock offense is good, but it isn’t that much better than the Sooner defense.Venables knew that.Knew what was happening, too.So, he did something about it — and Saturday at Florida, the results were obvious. Not only did the offense play exponentially better but the defense also got back to its stingy, stout, stellar ways.Trell Harris injury update: OU football WR suffered infection after procedureFlorida managed just 203 yards of offense and one touchdown, a 15-yard run. What’s more, the Gators had only one other drive that got into Sooner territory. Of their 10 possessions, only two of them crossed midfield.Read that again.Florida only had two possessions that got across midfield.That’s the kind of defense that OU has played much of the season, but after that South Carolina game, you had to wonder if we’d see it again. Maybe the Sooners were cooked. Perhaps you could stick a fork in them.Instead, they showed they’re still very capable of sticking a shank in an opponent.Now, Venables expects that regardless.“I tell them to show up and play,” he said. “I say it to the whole team.”His message to the defense: I don’t care how many times the offense turns the ball over.His message to the offense: I don’t care how many first downs the defense gives up.Venables expects both sides to go win the game. That’s their job, and he expects them to do it.But the offense wasn’t.Through the first eight games of the season, Arbuckle and Co. didn’t do their job. Not even close. And because of those offensive shortcomings, the defense was forced to not only do its job but also carry the (dead)weight of the offense.It was untenable.Even the best defenses in the history of football had letdowns. The 2000 Baltimore Ravens. The 1985 Chicago Bears. The 1976 Pittsburgh Steelers. None of them shut down every opponent, and all had capable offenses.Asking the OU offense to carry such a heavy burden with a sorry offense?Venables knew that wasn’t right.“What you do is more powerful than what you say,” he said.So he did what he could in the middle of the season, changing offensive coordinators and giving the defense reason to believe. No, it wasn’t easy, but yes, it was absolutely, positively necessary.“I did have a peace about that,” Venables said, “and it was all about what’s best for the team and what does the team need and what do they deserve.”The team deserved better — the offense and the defense.Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at jcarlson@oklahoman.com. 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