How does Brent Venables plan to fix Oklahoma's running game?

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One of the major points of emphasis for the Oklahoma Sooners this offseason is to fix the running game. OU averaged 3.5 yards per carry in 2025, a number that fifth-year head coach Brent Venables called “pathetic” earlier this month.

Venables turned Oklahoma’s defense from a soft, timid unit under former head coach Lincoln Riley into the physically imposing, aggressive group that it is today. Now, he’s decided that OU’s running game on offense needs to embrace that same identity.

“It’s the same transformation,” Venables said to the media last week. “You’re not going to do it by tricking anybody. You do it by having a hard edge to you and recruiting some tough-minded guys and getting great at the fundamentals and the techniques and finding the right schemes that fit them and having an aggressive mentality. Should have the same type of aggressive mindset, attitude and scheme. That all kind of goes together.”

According to Venables, Oklahoma’s road to running the football better in the SEC begins before the helmets are even put on.

“To me, it all starts with attitude and mindset,” Venables said. “You gotta have a kick-ass mindset if you wanna kick ass … So it starts with that. Being aggressive, not letting football get in the way. We’ve got good, strong, athletic dudes that got power, that can bend, that are physical. Don’t let football get in the way and overthink things.”

Schematically, the Sooners run an evolved and modernized version of the Air Raid offense under second-year offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Ben Arbuckle. While the Air Raid incorporates a lot of wide receivers and passing concepts, Sooner Nation knows that you can run the ball physically and effectively if you commit to it and have the right players to have a great pass/run balance. Venables, one of the best defensive minds of his generation, knows that too.

“You can’t sit there in a 10 (personnel) set, in a four-wide look and say, ‘That’s going to be your running game,'”Venables said. “So a year ago, I thought that wasn’t our forte for our tight ends at being able to knock people, get under people’s chin straps and knock them backwards and create inertia so that we can run the ball north and south.”

Of course, to have a good running game, you have to have a good offensive line. That falls on the shoulders of offensive line coach Bill Bedenbuagh, the longest-tenured OU position coach, and the only one that still remains from the Bob Stoops and Riley eras.

Bedenbaugh’s unit bottomed out in 2024, but they were a bit better last year with the emergence of true freshmen Michael Fasusi and Ryan Fodje, as well as redshirt freshman Eddy Pierre-Louis. Venables has high hopes for the group that also returns Jake Maikkula and Heath Ozaeta, and added E’Marion Harris, Caleb Nitta, and Peyton Joseph in the transfer portal.

“Their confidence and their physicality and their fundamentals are better than what they were, so we should be a little more consistent there,” Venables said of his young offensive linemen.

It’s no secret that the offense under Venables hasn’t bee good enough for the past couple of seasons. While he’s completely rebuilt the defense in his image, it’s now the offense that needs to return to its former glory. Venables, as expected, is preaching physicality and development to fix a major facet of that side of the ball, and he’ll be doing everything he can to make sure Oklahoma takes another big step forward offensively in 2026.

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This article originally appeared on Sooners Wire: Brent Venables is intent on fixing the Oklahoma run game this year

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