Brent Venables Reveals Emotional Reason for Pay Cut After Earning $27M as Oklahoma HC

Oklahoma’s Brent Venables agreed to a new contract that slices $1 million off his 2025 salary. After suffering his second losing season in three years, he finds himself in the hottest seat any Sooners coach has faced since John Blake’s back-to-back sub-.500 campaigns in the late 1990s. The pay cut is the only adjustment to Venables’ deal, which still runs through 2029, lowering his paycheck from $8.55 million to $7.55 million for this season. But the real question lingering is: why was Venables willing to take the hit?

“It was initiated by Coach Venables as a one-time give-back to contribute to the department’s revenue-sharing efforts,” an Oklahoma athletics department spokesman revealed. And now, the coach has come forward to address it himself. On August 30, Venables faced the media after handing a heroic 35-3 defeat to the Illinois State Redbirds, and when asked about his pay cut, he stated: “I did it because I think it was the right thing to do.

“And I’ve lived a very favored career, way more than what I deserve. I want to help Oklahoma be a winner. So everybody can play a role in that. And so, Julie and I spoke over several days about what that might look like. So we worked it out with the administration. And we just think it’s right.”

“You know, the players deserve that. This is that. Everything’s different from what it was 5, 10, 15 years ago. And so it’s a very small gesture… It’s not one-sided. It’s all of us together. If we’re going to be successful, it’s going to be the whole program. Our fans, our fanbase, who are just amazing. Our administration, our players, our coaches, it’s going to be all of us together moving forward,” he said as per the Oklahoma Sooners on YouTube.

Venables’ $1 million pay cut is being redirected into Oklahoma’s revenue-sharing program. In doing so, he is following a growing trend among high-profile coaches. LSU’s Brian Kelly pledged to match $1 million in donations to the Tigers’ NIL collective; Florida State’s Mike Norvell cut down $4.5 million from his salary for a fundraising drive, and Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy handed back $1 million to support revenue-sharing.

Venables also stated that college football demands a different type of thinking from its coaches, as the landscape has changed. “I think that’s a big part of it. Obviously, things have changed — and it’s about time, you know? I wish it would have happened earlier. I’m not going to get on the soapbox where, ‘It didn’t have to be so dramatic all at once,’ because it’s been dramatic, as we all know. But yeah, things are not going back.”

He added that the program was in a good place currently and that the leadership will continue scaling upward to build something that is stable and consistent.

Back in 2022, in his first year as the Sooners’ head coach, Venables took in $7,000,000. He got a hike the next year, making it $7,100,000 in 2023. Last season, Venables drew $8,152,000 due to a prior year’s bonus being tacked on. For the 2025 season, he was entitled to $8,550,000, but after his voluntary $1,000,000 pay cut to fund roster revenue sharing, it was reduced to $7,550,000. In total, he has already hit the $27 million figure.

But ultimately, the Sooners, just like every other college program, will still be judged by their actions on the gridiron. The question now is: Can the Sooners come back with a turnaround after their 6-7 disappointment in 2024? We will have to wait and watch.