Brent Venables talks about how Bob Stoops developed impressive coaching tree
Two members of the Bob Stoops coach tree will meet again as head coaches Saturday when Oklahoma faces Tulsa. Sooners head man Brent Venables and Golden Hurricanes coach Kevin Wilson worked together for nine seasons under Stoops in Norman, going up against each other in practice as offensive and defensive coordinator.
They’re not the only former Stoops assistants who have gone on to become head coaches. Currently, Tennessee coach Josh Heupel and USC coach Lincoln Riley are some of the biggest names who’ve worked for Stoops in the past. Legendary coach Mike Leach, former Kansas coach Mark Mangino and Venables were all a part of Stoops’ first staff in 1999 and Heupel was the quarterback for that team.
Venables also played under Stoops at Kansas State in 1991 and 1992 and worked with him for six seasons after that in Manhattan. Speaking in a press conference Tuesday, he recalled the decision to follow Stoops from KSU to Oklahoma and explained why he believes the coach had so much success finding quality assistants.
“Coach Stoops always had a way of attracting good players,” Venables said. “Would always get the best out of people. Then also, good coaches. He’s a winner. I remember coach (Bill) Snyder asking me — I really struggled with ‘Do I leave home and Kansas State or do I go to Oklahoma?’ So with all the emotional attachment and feeling indebted to coach Snyder, the flip side was ‘Well, that’s coach Stoops. I love playing for him as a player and I love working and learning from him as a defensive mentor.’
“So once I told (Snyder) I was gonna go to Oklahoma, he goes ‘How do you know they’re gonna win?’ Because Oklahoma had gone several years without winning. I was like ‘That’s Bob Stoops and he’s a winner.’ He attracts great coaches but he also has instincts for it, too.”
Venables left in 2012 to become the defensive coordinator at Clemson, one year after Wilson took over as the head coach at Indiana. Now more than a decade later, both find themselves back in the Sooner State, with one right back where he started and the other a two-hour drive away.
Wilson is in his first year at Tulsa after spending the past six season as the offensive coordinator at Ohio State. He coached some of the best offenses in the country in that time and so far has the Hurricanes off to a 1-1 start.
Venables is excited to meet him again on the field, thinking back to the memories they made working together for nearly a decade.
“We had a lot of good times,” he said. “Our families, our kids growing up. That’s the coaching profession. This is a wonderful community to raise your family.
“I know it was really hard, different coaches taking different opportunities. I don’t think any of those opportunities, whether it was Chuck Long going to San Diego State or Mike (Stoops) going to Arizona or Mangino going to Kansas or Kevin leaving to go to Indiana, I don’t think any of that was probably easy for anybody. But just a lot of great memories on and off the field.”
At the end of that day, Venables credits the environment Stoops fostered for allowing those memories to occur and allowing those in his coaching tree to be successful.
“It was genuine, the coaches that were a part of Bob Stoops’ staff because of his leadership,” he said. “He nurtured family and relationships and it’s all of us together. Coach Stoops is one of the most humble human beings on this planet.
“The byproduct of that is just a wonderful, connected environment that everybody and their families benefitted from. I think people felt free from the coaching side to do their thing, if you will, and be successful as a result.”
Kickoff between Oklahoma and Tulsa is set for 2:30 p.m. CT on Saturday in Tulsa.