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Will Oklahoma’s Big 12 success translate to SEC? New gauntlet is Sooners’ best litmus test

“Oklahoma isn’t intimidated as a football program. We’re running towards the SEC,” said Oklahoma coach Brent Venables.

With all due respect to its oldest and most cutthroat rival, Oklahoma, not Texas, brings the more sterling football credentials to the Southeastern Conference.

The Sooners have won seven national titles; the Longhorns four. Oklahoma has 50 conference championships to UT’s 33, including 14 compared to the Longhorns’ four during the schools’ 29 seasons together in the Big 12.

It’s little wonder, then, that when asked Tuesday about his team’s degree of readiness for its first season in the SEC, Sooners coach Brent Venables all but bowed up and clenched his jaw.

“We’re excited for the challenge,” he said. “Oklahoma isn’t intimidated as a football program. We’re running towards the SEC.”

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Fearlessness aside, though, third-year coach Venables admittedly could not project how the Sooners’ relative Big 12 dominance would translate in the almighty SEC.

With a 10-3 record and No. 15 Associated Press finish last season, Oklahoma among Big 12 brethren was only outranked by No. 3 Texas, which by the way lost to the Sooners 34-30 in October.

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Conversely, five SEC teams ranked higher than OU: No. 4 Georgia, No. 5 Alabama, No. 8 Missouri, No. 9 Ole Miss and No. 12 LSU. With the exception of Georgia, four of those teams are on OU’s 2024 schedule, three of them on the road, along with the annual clash against Texas in the Cotton Bowl.

“I think going through it gives you the best litmus test,” Venables said. “There’s nothing that you can read about or even watch on tape, to be honest with you.”

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By most metrics, the Oklahoma program is much better positioned to contend in the SEC than this time a year ago, when it was coming off a 6-7 season and Venables appeared to be on tenuous ground in Norman.

Then came a 6-0 start, including the upset of Texas, and a climb to as No. 6 in the country before stumbles at Kansas (38-33) and Oklahoma State (27-24).

On June 21, Venables received a six-year, $51.6 million contract – a reward not only for last season’s bounce-back but his third straight top-10-ranked recruiting class as OU strived to build an SEC-worthy roster after announcing in July of 2021 that it intended to bolt with Texas from the Big 12.

“The trenches is where this conference is decided usually year-in and year-out; incredibly challenging from that standpoint,” Venables said, adding these SEC traits. “The length; the speed; the play at quarterback; the coaching acumen from top to bottom.”

For quarterback play, the Sooners are turning to their latest heralded prospect at that position, sophomore Jackson Arnold, the 2022 Gatorade National Player of the Year out of Denton Guyer.

With SEC Media Days taking place in Texas for the first time, Venables noted that nearly 20 Sooners are from Dallas-Fort Worth area high schools.

Counting returning players and portal transfers, Venables estimated that 24 Sooners are entering their third year or more as starters.

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Senior linebacker Danny Stutsman, out of Windermere, Fla., initially decided to enter the 2024 NFL draft after earning second-team Walter Camp All-America honors last season. His OU locker was even cleared out, but he had a change of heart after meeting with Venables.

“He told me, ‘Look, Oklahoma is going to win with or without you.’ " Stutsman recalled Tuesday. “I fully believe that. The program has been amazing before I got here; it’ll be amazing when I leave here.”

Have Venables and his staff built enough depth in the offensive and defensive lines to compete with the SEC’s elite teams?

Venables says he believes the program has 9-to-11 offensive linemen and 10-to-12 defensive linemen who are capable of playing “winning football.”

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“There are several guys that maybe don’t have the depth of experience, but I trust my eyes,” he said, adding, “This is a game of development.”

This inaugural season, Venables said, not only will reveal how SEC-ready the Sooners are as currently constructed, but player prototypes and positional needs going forward.

Oklahoma, of course, will be learning the ways of the SEC at the same time as its fellow Big 12 co-alpha dog, Texas, except now the schools will be part of a pack of Rottweilers.

A reporter on Tuesday half-jokingly started to ask Venables whether he and Texas coach Steve Sarkisian would be sharing notes.

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“Probably not,” Venables interjected before the reporter could finish the question.

Will moving to the SEC in any way affect that rivalry, which dates to 1900?

“It’s as deep-seated and hate-filled and emotional of a rivalry as there is in all of college football,” Venables said. “So I don’t see how the conference affiliation will make a big difference.”

Texas won the first Big 12 title, in 1996, and last season’s, though the Sooners dominated much of what occurred between.

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Now, both schools will face multiple near-Texas-OU-caliber conference games every season.

“If you think that one is emotionally taxing, you’re going to go into a lot of venues that the pageantry is going to be real, the stadiums are going to be completely full,” Venables said. “And a lot of people are going to hate your guts for three hours or so.”

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