Going to miss this intensity of the Sooner sidelines

Yesterday was a cluster of rumors coming out of the Clemson camp that Oklahoma DC, Brent Venables had indeed taking the Clemson DC job. Media was told just to slow down, that Clemson hadn’t even offered Venables a job yet. Sooner Nation rested easy the rest of the day.

Last night, pretty late into the evening, a Clemson beat writer tweets out that he got a text from Clemson HC Dabo Swinney that Brent Venables is now a Tiger, go Clemson! Just imagine the text with lots of exclamation points. About 5 minutes after that broke, the Sooner Media was receiving texts from Venables that confirmed, Clemson bound.

So now, HC Bob Stoops is put into a predicament, hire another DC to be a co-coordinator/linebacker coach with Mike Stoops, or just let Mike take the defensive reigns and go for just a linebackers coach. We will be finding out soon enough. It won’t take long for a hire to be made, to get this staff ready for Spring Ball.

Venables was a recruiting machine for the Sooners but a lot of Oklahoma fans have come to resent him with the lack of defense powerhouses compared to the ones Mike produced when he was the DC. Many people forget the Venables has always been Mike’s second hand man, being on the Sooner sidelines since 1999. Now that Mike is back in Norman, it would have gone back to the old days, despite their titles, it would have turned back into Mike’s defense and Venables would just been the co-shot caller.

You can’t blame him one bit for wanting to get out on his own, and have his own defense to run, not constantly be reminded that it was Mike’s team. Even though it is for Dabo and Clemson, I wish him good luck. Those of you that are excited to see him go? Let me remind you of a couple recruits that Venables had a major part in getting to Norman: Ronnell Lewis, Demontre Hurst, Tom Wort, Corey Nelson, Austin Box, Jamell Fleming and DeMarco Murray; and that’s just to name a few.

Venables stated in an interview this morning, it was very emotional decision for him. It was an opportunity he couldn’t turn down. He has been the most loyal assistant and head coach could ask for his entire tenure at OU, having never interviewed for a DC position anywhere else, until this off-season. He did interview for head coaching positions over the years, but in the end, stayed in Norman.

It looked like Bob was in the process of building his defensive coaching staff back to the early 2000′s powerhouse status, instead it will be missing a key player.

Good luck to Brent, all of Sooner Nation, or at least those who know this is a big deal, wish you the best.