Brent Venables seems rather average among SEC coaches even after new contract with Oklahoma

Venables went 6-2 against SEC opponents last season, but now that he has this new contract in hand, how does he stack up against the rest of the coaches in the conference?

Brent Venables is an average SEC head coach heading into 2026

There are 16 SEC head coaches, and three of them are brand new heading into 2026. They all could end up being great, but in a hypothetical ranking, it's only fair that they'd start the season in the bottom half with the coaches who find themselves on the hot seat in Shane Beamer (South Carolina) and Jeff Lebby (Mississippi State).

Venables is certainly better than Will Stein (Kentucky), Ryan Silverfield (Arkansas) and Alex Golesh (Auburn) at this point. He's more established than Pete Golding (Ole Miss), but Golding did win two playoff games last season.

In the top half of the hypothetical rankings are your no-doubters, which, honestly, only Georgia's Kirby Smart is a shoo-in for, but Steve Sarkisian (Texas), Kalen DeBoer (Alabama) and Lane Kiffin (LSU) all deserve to be mentioned.

What that means is that Venables finds himself in the cushy middle of these hypothetical SEC coaching rankings fighting alongside coaches like Mike Elko (Texas A&M), Josh Heupel (Tennessee), Clark Lea (Vanderbilt) and Eli Drinkwitz (Missouri).

Supporters of Venables would tell you that he belongs closer to the top end of the rankings near DeBoer and Kiffin. Detractors could easily make the case that Elko, Heupel, Lea or Drinkwitz could out-coach Venables on any given Saturday.

Venables could be ranked anywhere from the fifth-best SEC head coach to the 10th or even 11th, which means he falls into the "average" category.

He's not the worst. He's not the best.

Oklahoma clearly believes he can be the best, but for now, the Sooners are paying $10.5 million per year for a whole lot of hanging around in the middle.