Mussatto: Can OU football fix its penalty issues? Brent Venables says to shoot the arrows
NORMAN — Brent Venables, standing behind a podium, mimed an archer. He pulled his right arm back from an imaginary bow and let out a puff of air.
“Shoot the arrows,” said Venables, with a wry smile, in response to a follow-up question about the Sooners’ penalty issues.
Venables, during his weekly press conference Tuesday, was accountable in absorbing some of those so-called arrows while glib in deflecting others. Things get uncomfortable in Norman when the Sooners lose, and after back-to-back losses to Kansas and OSU, Venables was predictably terse Tuesday.
It doesn’t help that discipline issues, starting with Venables and his staff, have plagued the Sooners two weeks in a row. In Lawrence, an OU assistant coach was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct. In Stillwater, Venables came too far onto the field to argue with a referee and was assessed an unsportsmanlike penalty of his own.
Both of those 15-yard penalties came during Kansas and OSU scoring drives.
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The Sooners have been the most-penalized team in the Big 12 both in total penalties (64) and yards-penalized per game (59.2). Among the 133 teams in the FBS, OU ranks in the bottom 30 nationally in penalties and penalty yards.
“The last two weeks, being on the road, it’s something that’s common,” Venables said. “We were pretty dang good prior to the Kansas game and not so good coming out of the last two weeks.”
I then asked Venables about the balance in responsibility, between players and coaches, when it comes to discipline issues.
“Everybody has ownership, but it starts and ends with the coaches,” Venables said.
Then Venables zagged, referring to himself in the third person.
“Coach Venables, he’s an undisciplined coach and the players are playing undisciplined,” he said. “Until you get it right, that’s fair."
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“Shoot the arrows,” he said. “Our job is to fix it. Period. Balance and all that, yeah, we gotta have better discipline. Everybody has ownership in it. And it all matters.
“Can’t change the narrative now, right?”
But that’s the thing.
Sure, Venables was being sarcastic, but the narrative he recited can certainly be changed.
The Sooners still have a minimum of four games left. Four games to clean things up, both for the players on the field and the coaches on the sidelines.
No one is shooting any arrows. The Sooners are shooting themselves in the foot.
Joe Mussatto is a sports columnist for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joe? Email him at jmussatto@oklahoman.com. Support Joe's work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU football, Brent Venables seek fix to Sooners' penalty issues
