Oklahoma extending Brent Venables Sooner could come back to haunt them later

Since when does going 16-10 over a two-year span merit a six-year extension to continue leading Oklahoma football? That is the situation we currently find ourselves in with Brent Venables over in Norman. Given that OU athletic director Joe Castiglione can do no wrong, he is giving the largely unproven Sooners head coach a six-year extension. He hasn't coached a game in the SEC yet...

While last year was better than two years ago, that is presumably a lot of money to give Venables ahead of a season with so much unknown. If the Sooners were staying in the Big 12, I would be more in favor of this move. This is because Oklahoma has historically been the best program in that league. This was a top-three program all time, but the entire dynamic has changed upon OU joining the SEC.

Oklahoma is going to go from at the very top of its league with Texas, to probably looking up at the likes of Georgia, Alabama, Ole Miss, Missouri, LSU and unfortunately, Texas entering its first season SEC. The Sooners are right there with Tennessee, hoping teams like Texas A&M, Kentucky and Auburn who have no shot at making the expanded College Football Playoff from overtaking them.

I get the extension based on good faith from Castiglione, but the man feels largely unchallenged here.

Castiglione has been the Oklahoma athletic director since 1998 and the one to hire Bob Stoops...

Oklahoma just gave Brent Venables a head-scratching six-year extension

This to me feels like a handful of things coming together at the same time. It has little to do with how well Oklahoma performed last year, something to do with the program's recruiting efforts, and everything to do with arch rival Texas. The Longhorns won the Big 12 last year and are on a shortlist of four or five teams who can realistically win the national title in 2024. Steve Sarkisian looms large...

As a defensive mind and a recruiter, I will never have a problem with Venables. He is the best assistant to ever work under Dabo Swinney. Admittedly, most of them have been deplorably bad as head coaches in college football, but last year's 10-win season at OU is apparently, nothing to sneeze at. I am wondering if Oklahoma made a huge mistake. Then again, the state was not founded on patience.

The whole Sooner moniker and demonym has everything to do with leaving prematurely during the Land Run of 1889. Flash forward a century and 34 years later, and some things never change. All the while, Castiglione has been at the helm of the state's flagship universities athletic department for nearly a fifth of that time. 26 years on the job has to mean you are serving in United States Congress.

While I do applaud Castiglione for being bold here, there are plenty of ways where this could backfire.