Erratic to poor defensive play has been the ball and chain of the Oklahoma football program for most of the past decade, and it hit record new depths in Brent Venables’ first season as the Sooners’ head coach.
The irony in that, of course, is that Venables is considered one of the best defensive minds in college football. No one truly expects Oklahoma’s defense to stay like this much longer, but it’s also safe to say no one ever expected that it would be as bad for as long as it has.
Believe it or not, in the early part of the 2000s, under another first-time head coach, Bob Stoops, himself a defensive-minded coach, Oklahoma had one of the best defensive teams in college football.