Guerin Emig: Spring practice brings bumps in a head coach’s road. How will Brent Venables, until now on an extended OU honeymoon, respond? | OU Sports Extra

NORMAN — Everything remains sunshine and Hershey bars for Brent Venables, the honeymooning head football coach at Oklahoma, but the storm clouds and Brussels sprouts are coming.

Spring practice arrives Tuesday, which means someone’s going to run the wrong route, miss the wrong gap or sprain the wrong ligament.

“Oh my god, I’m on the wrong field,” Venables said by way of magnification Monday. “Right? That might happen tomorrow. God bless him if it does.”

The first-time head coach laughed at the thought. He also recognized something critical: God can bless those who screw up, but it’s the head coach who must straighten up the mess.

How does Venables manage his first brushes with problems as OU’s head coach?

Is it different than it was for him as OU’s, or Clemson’s, defensive coordinator?

How can his experiences as coordinator shape his crisis management as head coach?

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By way of answers, let’s start with a story Venables shared at Monday’s press conference…

“So I recruited Rhett Bomar and that goes down,” he began. “First day coming back.”

First day of OU’s 2006 preseason. Bomar, the golden-boy returning starting quarterback, gets kicked off the Sooners for taking payment for undone work at a Norman car dealership, then lying about it to head coach Bob Stoops.

“Had no idea that Rhett Bomar is no longer gonna be here,” Venables continued, “and Paul Thompson’s the quarterback. And he’s moving from receiver to be our quarterback. And I was like, ‘Whooooa. Three years recruiting this guy (Bomar).’ Young. Linebacker coach.

“I’m like (he raises his hand), ‘Hold on. Uh… Can’t we just suspend him a couple games?’ And you know which games I was thinking. ‘Those games.’ (OU had UAB and Middle Tennessee on the ’06 nonconference schedule). Like… ‘We’re in charge.’

“I’m taking you back to this place because I didn’t have the answers. I wasn’t equipped then. But Bob was like… ‘No, I gave him three opportunities. He was dishonest. I gave him some grace and he was still dishonest. And I’ve got, you know, this team…’

“Bob’s had a career of doing what’s right. What a great example that was for me at that young time… ‘We’ll be fine.’

“I don’t think like that. I’m, like, ready to… (he imitates diving off a cliff) ‘Timber!’ You know?”

So two things. One, Venables realizes he is no longer the assistant coach raising his hand for the sake of leniency, for the sake of the team’s chances, and thinking much smaller picture.

And two, he trusts mentors like Stoops and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney have rubbed off on him in terms of the bigger picture.

The story didn’t stop with Bomar Monday.

“Then I went to Clemson,” Venables continued. “My first year at Clemson (in 2012) we’re going to open up with Auburn. In Atlanta. Where I guess Clemson at the time thought, ‘We can’t beat anybody in Atlanta. There’s some curse in Atlanta…’

“All spring I got baptized because they (Clemson’s offense) had ‘Nuk’ (DeAndre) Hopkins and they had Sammy Watkins and they had Jaron Brown and they had Andre Ellington and they had Adam Humphries and they had all these guys that were really good NFL players.

“So we’re getting ready to go into fall camp and we’re gonna suspend Sammy Watkins. And I’m like, ‘Whoa. We’re opening up with Auburn.’ Here I am again, same spot. I’m raising my hand. He didn’t get arrested or anything, he got caught in a bad situation where he happened to be there.

“I’m like, ‘We’re gonna suspend this guy for that? C’mon now. How ‘bout the next week?’ We were playing Ball State. But Coach stuck with his guns.

“It was another affirmation for me. Like, ‘I’m trying to help this guy.’ He was suspended for, like, three games. And we won anyway. We won 26-19. We didn’t need Sammy. So it was just a lesson for me.

“I’ve got countless examples like that… Been scarred up. Lots of experiences.”

Venables’ experiences shape not just how he oversees OU’s defense this year, or how he allows Jeff Lebby to manage OU’s offense, or who he prefers to schedule for the Sooners in nonconference.

They shape how he responds the first time the stuff hits the fan.

That’s just as important, given players take their cues from their coaches during the good times and the bad.

The Sooners seem to have responded favorably to Venables’ imprint on the program the past 105 days. But then why not? Everything the 51-year-old has espoused, from support staff fortification to name, image and likeness advocacy, has been been to the players’ benefit.

Will they respond in kind when something goes sideways?

It likely depends on how their head coach responds.

“There’s going to be plenty of bumps along the road,” Venables said. “I’m anticipating Murphy’s Law… Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, right?

“Murphy’s getting ready to get beat down. So that’s what I know. Just preparing for adversity.”

Venables might be just 105 days into his new job, but he asserts he has been preparing for it, for the good and the bad, a lot longer. It’s been 23 years since his first day under Stoops, and 10 since his first under Swinney.

“Everybody loves the mountaintop experience. Nobody likes to be down in that valley. That’s a tough place,” he said. “Growth and the improvement process can be very discouraging sometimes. You’re not any less vulnerable or susceptible than anybody else. Going through all that sharpens you up and equips you.”

Is Venables equipped to handle the valley as OU head coach? We’ll have our first clue now that spring practice has arrived.

guerin.emig@tulsaworld.com

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