This board sucks off every **** coach
Venables wasn't that hot at OU
One of the notable takeaways from our own Bill Connelly’s review and updating of previous years’
S&P+ rankings is how much stronger the Big 12 has looked on reflection.
The 2011 rankings revealed an absolutely loaded B12 slate in a year that was notable for RG3 winning the Heisman trophy for Baylor and Mike Gundy’s Oklahoma State winning the league thanks in no small part to the performance of Biletnikoff winner Justin Blackmon. It was the first year of round robin play with no title game. Nebraska and Colorado had both just split for the Big 10 and Pac-12 respectively and the overall results of the season in the new-look league were fairly jarring for everyone.
At the time, the emergence of non-OU/Texas powers within the league was shocking. Baylor defeated Oklahoma for the first time in their program’s history in 2011, Texas Tech went on the road to Norman and ended a 39-game home winning streak for the Sooners, and then Bob Stoops’ program took a rare L in a Bedlam game/de-facto Big 12 title game against Oklahoma State.
The big takeaway from this season in Oklahoma was that things needed to change. The defense needed to simplify and Brent Venables clearly needed some help if he was going to allow teams like OSU, Tech, and Baylor to drop 40 points and come out with victories. As it happened, the DC who’d helped Bob Stoops and Brent Venables establish the Sooners’ initial, championship-winning defense back in 2000 was available. Mike Stoops had just been fired from Arizona and he was brought back to Norman to take over while Venables was knocked back down to “co-coordinator.” Venables then unsurprisingly left and was made sole coordinator at Clemson, we’re all well aware of how that’s gone.