Oklahoma’s Decision to Extend Brent Venables Right Now Is a Mistake
NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...
Oklahoma announced Thursday that head coach Brent Venables has a new contract running through 2031 at an average of $10.5 million per year. That puts him among the 10 highest-paid coaches in college football.
Venables and the people closest to him should be thrilled. For the university, the timing and structure of this deal are a lot harder to defend.
Two things can be true at the same time. The program looks better than it did two years ago. Oklahoma went 4-0 in November, made the College Football Playoff, and has a more complete roster heading into 2026. Venables has also delivered two 10-win seasons. That progress matters. It does not automatically mean the program needed to lock him in through 2031 right now at a top-10 salary.
Sport & State Host Jonathan Hutton 8-20-26The Jones Report · Episode
Sooners Roundtable publisher Tyler Jones and Thomas Bridges break down Brent Venables' extension with Oklahoma on the latest edition of The Jones Report. Listen now on Spotify, Apple, and all major podcast platforms!
Venables has shown he is a good coach. He has not yet proven he is a great one. Good coaches get second chances and patience. Great coaches get the kind of money and term length that make them nearly impossible to move on from.
Oklahoma just handed out the second version before the first one was fully earned on a consistent basis.
Fans have watched two solid years and two mediocre ones. Asking for more consistency before this kind of commitment is not disloyalty. It is pattern recognition.
There was no external pressure forcing this move in August. No elite program is currently trying to pry Venables out of Norman. If that changes after a deep playoff run, Oklahoma can deal with it then. Crossing that bridge when it actually appears is different from building the most expensive bridge in advance.
The buyout is the part that should worry people most. The exact numbers will become clearer after the September board of regents meeting, but raises usually come with higher exit costs. Venables’ previous deal already carried a $34.9 million buyout after 2025 and $26.2 million after 2026. Those were already difficult numbers. Raising the salary and extending the term almost certainly makes a future separation more expensive.
A year ago Venables was on the hot seat. That reality should still matter when the contracts are being written.
People will be tempted to blame athletics director emeritus Joe Castiglione for wanting to pay his guy. However, the fingerprints on this one point toward new athletics director Roger Denny.
Denny’s background includes consulting work in the Big Ten on coaching contracts, including deals involving Illinois men's basketball head coach Brad Underwood and Illinois football head coach Bret Bielema.
He knows how these agreements are built. He is also already defending the philosophy behind the extension.
Denny stated, “We’re in this place in our industry where literally the second we come out and demonstrate a commitment to a coach, everyone wants to know what it costs to fire him. What are we doing? If that was on our mind, we wouldn’t be signing this contract.”
You can understand the frustration in that statement. Constantly talking about buyouts can feel cynical. But college football is a business, and Oklahoma Football is the university’s biggest athletic asset. Protecting that asset means believing in the coach while also protecting the institution if things go sideways. Those two ideas are not contradictory. Refusing to think about the downside is how programs get stuck.
The recruiting argument does not hold up well either. Venables is already sitting on one of the strongest high school classes the program has seen in years, due in 2027. The absence of this extension did not stop that class from coming together. Stability helps, but it is not the only factor, and it was not required in this moment to keep the roster pipeline alive.
If Venables builds on last season, wins at a high level, and turns Oklahoma into a consistent SEC contender, the contract will look fine in hindsight and most people will move on. That is the best-case scenario.
The problem is that the deal does not protect the university very well in any other scenario. Other programs have shown how quickly situations can change. James Franklin at Penn State and Brian Kelly at LSU were not obvious midseason firings until they were.
Oklahoma does not need to assume the worst, but it should not write contracts as if the worst is impossible.
This extension mostly accomplishes one thing cleanly: it makes Venables and his agent, Jimmy Sexton, very happy. It gives the coach long-term security and a top-tier salary after one playoff appearance and a couple of 10-win seasons.
What it does not do is create urgency, preserve flexibility, or reward sustained excellence over a longer stretch.
Oklahoma may look back on this as a nothing-burger if the on-field progress continues. It may also look back on it as an expensive loss of leverage.
The program is better than it was. That is real. Handing out this kind of commitment in August, before the next step has been taken, is still a strange way to manage the most important position in the athletic department.
Belief and business can coexist.
This deal leaned hard into belief and did not leave the program much protection on the other side of it.
More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos