WEDNESDAY UPDATE
By: Larry Williams
It's been less than 72 hours since Lincoln Riley shocked everyone by bolting Oklahoma, and three days feels like an eternity here in 2021.
In Sooner Country, fans are becoming more irate as players follow Riley to Los Angeles and there's pressure on the school to hurry up and make a hire to start turning vibes in the positive direction that always comes with a new coach.
Here in the Clemson bubble, fans have already come to grips with the possibility that Dabo Swinney might have to replace one of the main pillars of this spectacular run. Now they've shifted to wanting to know one way or another, right damn now.
The reality is that while all signs point to this not being a particularly drawn-out coaching search, we're still just three days into it and it's almost ridiculous to think it should be over by now.
When Oklahoma scheduled a press conference for Monday afternoon, the speculative buzz was that they were going to announce a hire. There were unfounded rumors that Brent Venables was spotted at the airport in Norman and was ready to be introduced as the Sooners' next coach.
Later that night, there was a report that Venables' hire was a done deal. And even as recently as last night, there was a persistent vibe from some insiders in Norman that Venables is indeed the guy and that what happens hereafter is merely a formality.
Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables currently makes $2.5 million a year. The longtime college assistant earned $400k in his final season at Oklahoma in 2011. (Ken Ruinard - US Presswire)
We are in the business of telling you what we know and what we feel as it relates to important news developments. And here as we type this on Wednesday morning, we do not know or feel near confident enough to say Venables to Oklahoma is a done deal, or even that he's the top candidate.
As we have told you, Venables was on the road recruiting with Swinney all day Tuesday. We firmly believe Venables is a candidate and will soon interview formally with Oklahoma, perhaps as early as today.
But as we wrote at the start of the week, the key question here is not whether Venables would go to Oklahoma (we believe he would), but whether the Sooners will identify him as their guy.
As we have detailed, there are many reasons Venables would be a great fit at Oklahoma. He spent 13 years there before coming to Clemson, and he and his family still have deep connections and dear friends there.
After the cold-blooded way Riley left in the middle of the night, Venables would be seen as a return to some foundational principles the Sooners would probably like to get back to. On top of being intimately familiar with the culture that defined the Bob Stoops era in Norman, Venables has been immersed in the often-imitated, seldom-duplicated culture under Swinney.
Bottom line, Venables isn't going to shoot down rumors of a departure one day and then be gone the next. He's not wired to do it the way that Riley and Brian Kelly have done it in recent days, and the assurance of his doing things the right way is a check mark in his favor as Oklahoma decides on a coach.
That said, we don't get the feeling that Oklahoma instantly zeroed in on Venables after Riley's departure and that the only thing left is working out the details.
The process the Sooners followed Sunday into Monday -- putting AD Joe Castiglione and Stoops before the cameras to address the situation -- suggested the start of something and not the end of something.
If you're in Oklahoma's shoes, you can be highly interested in Venables while also being interested in taking some swings at some other names out there, perhaps established head coaches who might have wandering eyes.
It's conventional nowadays to think every head-coaching hire should be made with offense in mind, given how much high-scoring offense has defined recent national champions.
But Oklahoma has put up a bunch of points in recent years and still has been viewed as a bit of a CFP fraud mostly because of a defense that can't hold up. Venables' defenses have a record of holding up.
It's also lazy to assume that Venables' defensive focus means he doesn't have some well-conceived ideas about what to do on offense.
This is, of course, not his first rodeo when it comes to interviewing with other schools. There's zero doubt in our mind that he has some firm time-honed notions as to what he'd like to do on offense and whom he'd like to pursue to run that part of the show.
Some important context on that count: When Castiglione hired Stoops away from Florida in 1998, Stoops was regarded as one of the top defensive minds in the game.
And then at Oklahoma the Sooners quickly became known as offensive innovators after Stoops hired Mike Leach away from Kentucky and Mark Mangino from Kansas State.
It's highly plausible that those experiences, plus the last decade practicing against Clemson's prolific offenses, were formative for Venables as he developed his own views on how he'd attack defenses.
And defensive coordinators might be the most qualified to pick a viable offensive scheme, because they know exactly what tactics cause them to pull their hair out trying to defend. Two prominent examples of this are Alabama becoming known for offensive innovation under defensive mastermind Nick Saban, and the same for Bill Belichick in the Tom Brady era of the Patriots.
So we know Oklahoma is interested in Venables, we don't believe his hire is a done deal, and we believe he'll be one of multiple candidates to interview.
You want answers beyond that, of course. You want resolution every time you anxiously hit refresh on this site.
But this process is going to be slower than you like, even if it's fast.
From THE TIGER FAN SHOP: Happy Holidays! Click HERE for more marked-down officially-licensed CLEMSON gear!
By: Larry Williams
It's been less than 72 hours since Lincoln Riley shocked everyone by bolting Oklahoma, and three days feels like an eternity here in 2021.
In Sooner Country, fans are becoming more irate as players follow Riley to Los Angeles and there's pressure on the school to hurry up and make a hire to start turning vibes in the positive direction that always comes with a new coach.
Here in the Clemson bubble, fans have already come to grips with the possibility that Dabo Swinney might have to replace one of the main pillars of this spectacular run. Now they've shifted to wanting to know one way or another, right damn now.
The reality is that while all signs point to this not being a particularly drawn-out coaching search, we're still just three days into it and it's almost ridiculous to think it should be over by now.
When Oklahoma scheduled a press conference for Monday afternoon, the speculative buzz was that they were going to announce a hire. There were unfounded rumors that Brent Venables was spotted at the airport in Norman and was ready to be introduced as the Sooners' next coach.
Later that night, there was a report that Venables' hire was a done deal. And even as recently as last night, there was a persistent vibe from some insiders in Norman that Venables is indeed the guy and that what happens hereafter is merely a formality.
Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables currently makes $2.5 million a year. The longtime college assistant earned $400k in his final season at Oklahoma in 2011. (Ken Ruinard - US Presswire)
We are in the business of telling you what we know and what we feel as it relates to important news developments. And here as we type this on Wednesday morning, we do not know or feel near confident enough to say Venables to Oklahoma is a done deal, or even that he's the top candidate.
As we have told you, Venables was on the road recruiting with Swinney all day Tuesday. We firmly believe Venables is a candidate and will soon interview formally with Oklahoma, perhaps as early as today.
But as we wrote at the start of the week, the key question here is not whether Venables would go to Oklahoma (we believe he would), but whether the Sooners will identify him as their guy.
As we have detailed, there are many reasons Venables would be a great fit at Oklahoma. He spent 13 years there before coming to Clemson, and he and his family still have deep connections and dear friends there.
After the cold-blooded way Riley left in the middle of the night, Venables would be seen as a return to some foundational principles the Sooners would probably like to get back to. On top of being intimately familiar with the culture that defined the Bob Stoops era in Norman, Venables has been immersed in the often-imitated, seldom-duplicated culture under Swinney.
Bottom line, Venables isn't going to shoot down rumors of a departure one day and then be gone the next. He's not wired to do it the way that Riley and Brian Kelly have done it in recent days, and the assurance of his doing things the right way is a check mark in his favor as Oklahoma decides on a coach.
That said, we don't get the feeling that Oklahoma instantly zeroed in on Venables after Riley's departure and that the only thing left is working out the details.
The process the Sooners followed Sunday into Monday -- putting AD Joe Castiglione and Stoops before the cameras to address the situation -- suggested the start of something and not the end of something.
If you're in Oklahoma's shoes, you can be highly interested in Venables while also being interested in taking some swings at some other names out there, perhaps established head coaches who might have wandering eyes.
It's conventional nowadays to think every head-coaching hire should be made with offense in mind, given how much high-scoring offense has defined recent national champions.
But Oklahoma has put up a bunch of points in recent years and still has been viewed as a bit of a CFP fraud mostly because of a defense that can't hold up. Venables' defenses have a record of holding up.
It's also lazy to assume that Venables' defensive focus means he doesn't have some well-conceived ideas about what to do on offense.
This is, of course, not his first rodeo when it comes to interviewing with other schools. There's zero doubt in our mind that he has some firm time-honed notions as to what he'd like to do on offense and whom he'd like to pursue to run that part of the show.
Some important context on that count: When Castiglione hired Stoops away from Florida in 1998, Stoops was regarded as one of the top defensive minds in the game.
And then at Oklahoma the Sooners quickly became known as offensive innovators after Stoops hired Mike Leach away from Kentucky and Mark Mangino from Kansas State.
It's highly plausible that those experiences, plus the last decade practicing against Clemson's prolific offenses, were formative for Venables as he developed his own views on how he'd attack defenses.
And defensive coordinators might be the most qualified to pick a viable offensive scheme, because they know exactly what tactics cause them to pull their hair out trying to defend. Two prominent examples of this are Alabama becoming known for offensive innovation under defensive mastermind Nick Saban, and the same for Bill Belichick in the Tom Brady era of the Patriots.
So we know Oklahoma is interested in Venables, we don't believe his hire is a done deal, and we believe he'll be one of multiple candidates to interview.
You want answers beyond that, of course. You want resolution every time you anxiously hit refresh on this site.
But this process is going to be slower than you like, even if it's fast.
From THE TIGER FAN SHOP: Happy Holidays! Click HERE for more marked-down officially-licensed CLEMSON gear!
