What could have been?
Ventables Has Built the Best Defensive Unit in College Football
- Thread starter Scottsdale.Sooner
- Start date
BrentV also benefited from from getting away from OU that made him elevate his recruiting again. Bob had gotten lazy and his entire staff at that time had gotten lazy as well. BrentV leaving was the best thing that happened for him.
Maybe Venables wanted to coach where defense was more of a priority. Whether or not that was his motive, he succeeded.
I thought Bob's master plan was always building a solid defense? He allowed little brother to upset the apple cart. Nepotism can be a bad thing sometimes.
Maybe Mike Leach did more to sway Bob’s focus to offense than any of us know. 
Getting away from the offense happy Big 12 and into a different recruiting territory certainly helped him. Seems like Dabo has really trusted in him to build the wall of a defense. In the ACC that is not a mega challenge.
It prolly does help that BrentV doesn't have to face Big XII offenses week after week. But his defense had no issues dominating OU's offenses two years in a row in bowl games.
This is true but he didn't exactly dominate any B12 offenses while here. That is one of the reason's Bob brought Mike back thinking the two of them might be able to regain that magic from the early days. It would be easier to gauge Venerables if he played the type of offenses week in and week out like in the B12 conference. He doesn't face those type of offenses though weekly in the ACC.
I do believe that it would have been better if OU had been able to keep Venerables as I do think his defenses on the whole would be better than they currently have been. One game doesn't define a defense and one has to remember he also had a few weeks to prepare for that OU offense vs. only a week.
Maybe Brent is getting better athletes at Clemson. Seems like the B12 doesn’t attract great DL and LBs since the conference developed into such a pass happy league.
It may not be the greatest measuring factor, but it's all we got. 2 consecutive years BrentV dialed up a defense that dominated. Sure BrentV had some issues in the Big XII during the same time the OU program overall dropped a notch. So he allowed himself to get caught up in the laziness that Bob allowed to happen. Hard to know for sure if BrentV simply wasn't able to dial up a scheme to defend the offenses, or the overall drop in talent was the blame. Or a combination of both.
I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. Check out ESPN’s top 50 CFB players list. The entire Clemson D-line is rated within the top 24 players on that list.
2009 they dominated. Offense was the issue. 2010 was a solid defense as well.
You beat me to this stat. Pretty impressive on paper. Let's see how they do on the field. Wilkins is a beast.
Simple:
Brent gets to be a front 7 guy at Clemson. Bob and Mike have a back 7, philosophy. When Bobo Stoops came back, it was to hard to fight both Bob and Bobo.
Brent gets to be a front 7 guy at Clemson. Bob and Mike have a back 7, philosophy. When Bobo Stoops came back, it was to hard to fight both Bob and Bobo.