Brent Venables discusses how fast-paced offense can complement Oklahoma defense

Following the departure of Lincoln Riley, Oklahoma hired former assistant Brent Venables to his first head coaching job after a long stint at Clemson as defensive coordinator. Looking to keep the high-powered production from years past, one of his first moves was to add former Ole Miss offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby to the staff.

During a recent appearance on the College Football Daily podcast, Brent Venables addressed the balanced between a fast-paced offense and his defensive unit staying fresh throughout the game.

“I think the defense’s job is to stop people and the offense’s is to be efficient and score points,” said Venables. “First of all, it starts with that. Are there opportunities to compliment one another? Absolutely, you’ve got to be able to do that. But you’ve got to be efficient, to me, whatever you decided to do – if you’re a press team, you’re playing press man-to-man coverage all the time and you’ve got guys that can’t press, you better stop pressing. You better change it up. And if we’re a team that’s going to go really fast, and we’re punting all the time and we’re not scoring points, we ain’t going to be going very fast. I can tell you that.

“So you’ve got to be efficient, whatever it is that you do. You need to be efficient and at the end of the day win. That’s the number one goal is to win, I don’t care what it is. I’ve got my own sense of pride and I’ve got a very clear vision for what the cleanliness of winning we want it to look like. Very clear vision. But at the end of the day, the goal is to win. So if they go 1,000 mph doing so, great, but at the end of the day you want to be efficient on both sides of the ball and complement one another.”

Brent Venables on fast-paced offense

As Brent Venables continued to discuss the potential for a fast-paced offense on the other side of his stout defense, he made sure the offensive gameplan was known for more than the speed at which it runs.

“I certainly recognize the strain that it can cause from all the different things that it can cause issues for a defense,” said Venables. “But the biggest thing is being efficient, understanding who to block, how to target people, making sure we’re in good plays and things of that nature from a situational standpoint. To me, you can’t hope that the other team isn’t lined up in order to win the game. That’s not why you go no-huddle to me, or tempo. To me, what if they get lined up and handle your tempo? Now can you block them, can you be physical, can you be efficient, can you score points? … I don’t want to rely on someone not being lined up in order to win and be successful.”