At the Oklahoma Spring Game, head coach Brent Venables took his opportunity to jab at Lincoln Riley and USC about attendance.
It’s been a year and a half since Lincoln Riley left Oklahoma for USC. The bad blood clearly isn’t going to cool down any time soon.
Sooners head coach Brent Venables stoked the flames on Saturday during the Oklahoma Spring Game with comments about attendance that seemed directed at Riley and USC.
“For the naysayers that claim spring game attendance doesn’t matter, it’s because they have a program that doesn’t,” Venables said to the delight of the crowd at Memorial Stadium.
Brent Venables jabs at Lincoln Riley, USC at Oklahoma Spring Game
Venables definitely knows his audience and he played them like a fiddle with that comment.
The disparity between attendance at USC and Oklahoma for their spring games, and in the 2022 regular season, has been a common topic of discussion on Sooners Twitter. The Trojans weren’t filling the Coliseum despite Caleb Williams putting on a show and winning the Heisman Trophy as Riley debuted with an 11-3 record.
Let’s be real here though, Venables needs to work the crowd because the product on the field in Norman in 2022 wasn’t exactly worthy of cheers.
Oklahoma went 6-7, including a particularly embarrassing 49-0 trouncing at the hands of rival Texas. While Venables was known for his defense as Clemson’s defensive coordinator, his Sooners defense gave up 30 points per game. The result was the first losing record for the program this century.
Venables and his staff got to work on the recruiting trail, bringing in the No. 6 ranked class in the 247Sports composite. The next step is to turn recruiting victories into actual ones in the win-loss column.
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