Brent Venables is Following a Familiar Blueprint to Turn Around Oklahoma's Running Game

Brent Venables has a clear vision for what needs to improve this offseason. 

He wants Oklahoma to fix its rushing attack. 

The Sooners haven’t had a 1,000-yard rusher since Eric Gray totaled 1,366 yards in 2022, and last year’s team averaged a, in Venables’ words, “pathetic” 3.5 yards per carry. 

Another year of growth from the young offensive pieces, plus key additions, are expected to give the Sooners a boost, but Venables said the growth process starts with how the team approaches the run game every day on the practice field. 

“To me, it all starts with attitude and mindset. You gotta have a kick-ass mindset if you wanna kick ass,” Venables said on Thursday. 

“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.”

Oklahoma is relying on a handful of offseason additions to help the process along. 

Venables hired future Hall of Fame tight end Jason Witten to take over at tight ends coach, and the Sooners landed a trio of experienced tight ends in the portal in Hayden Hansen, Jack Van Dorselaer and Rocky Beers. 

Both Venables and OU general manager Jim Nagy hope the new-look tight end room can hlep Ben Arbuckle’s unit set the edge. 

“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.”

Oklahoma also signed a pair of running backs who look ready for the physicality of the SEC in freshmen Jonathan Hatton Jr. and DeZephen Walker, but perhaps the biggest area of growth will come from the offensive line being a year older. 

Michael Fasusi and Ryan Fodje finished the year as starters as true freshmen, and Eddy Pierre-Louis was a redshirt freshman starting in the College Football Playoff. 

Venables has been pleased with their growth so far over the offseason. 

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“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. 

Overall, Venables sees the process of getting Oklahoma’s rushing attack back to what it should be in the same way that he and his defensive staff saw the overhaul of that side of the ball, a development cycle that resulted in OU’s defense being one of the best in the country in 2025. 

“It's the same transformation. You're not going to do it by tricking anybody,” Venables said. “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.”