ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith saw this coming. Before Oklahoma even got to Athens, he said he was “expecting a blowout in Athens, Georgia.” That is exactly what happened. Georgia ran the Sooners off the field 41-13, turning their first SEC road game into an absolute mess. And now Brent Venables is getting the kind of public warning that only makes the pressure around him worse.
“As much as I like Brent Venables personally and as a defensive mind, he’s now on the hot seat with a Texas nightmare looming in Dallas in two weeks,” Skip Bayless posted on X after the loss.
Well, Georgia really made Oklahoma look like an FCS team. The Sooners went into halftime without a point and managed only 140 yards, with virtually all of it coming through the air. The Bulldogs, meanwhile, kept Brent Venables’ team pinned down and turned every mistake into something bigger.
Then came the play that basically killed any chance Oklahoma had of making it a game. Down 14-0, the Sooners drove all the way to Georgia’s 2-yard line and finally looked ready to punch back. Instead, John Mateer lost the ball on a play-action bootleg; Chris Cole scooped it up and took it 86 yards the other way for a touchdown. In a matter of seconds, Oklahoma went from potentially making it 14-7 to staring at a 21-0 hole.
The mistakes kept coming. John Mateer later threw an interception to KJ Bolden, and another fourth-down turnover put Georgia in position again. By then, Oklahoma was chasing a game that had already started running away. Mateer eventually finished 21-of-29 for 189 yards and a touchdown pass.
After reaching the College Football Playoff last year, this is a major step backward for Oklahoma. Ironically, that 2025 success also pushed the school into a decision some fans are now questioning.
The university doubled down on Brent Venables in August, agreeing to a new six-year contract that runs through January 2032. The deal was later approved by the Board of Regents and is worth $63 million, an average of $10.5 million per year. That decision now sits directly in the middle of the conversation.
AD Roger Denny publicly backed Brent Venables when the extension was announced, saying the work on the deal had begun after Oklahoma’s playoff run and that he believed strongly in the coach and the program’s direction. But Oklahoma is now 2-2, and people are questioning if the AD himself should be on the hot seat for giving out an extension for no reason.
Brent Venables was already under pressure entering 2026. After going 6-7 in his first season, he rebounded to 10-3, then fell back to 6-7 in 2024. Another 10-3 season in 2025, capped by a playoff appearance, cooled things down. But analysts warned that another setback could quickly put him back on the hot seat. Now it’s getting started.
The pressure on Brent Venables is not easing up anytime soon. Oklahoma gets a bye before facing No. 1 Texas in the Red River Rivalry on Oct. 10 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. After the Longhorns won last year’s meeting 23-6, Skip Bayless’ warning is not just about what happened in Athens. It is about what could happen next.
Georgia exposed plenty, but Texas could expose even more. Brent Venables has time to regroup, and Oklahoma has already shown enough in recent seasons for the school to believe in him. But the extension has changed the conversation. The Sooners did not just commit to their head coach. They committed to him loudly and financially. Now the difficult part is making that commitment look justified on the field.