Big 12 Trolls Brent Venables After Oklahoma HC Touts Strength of SEC

The official X account of the Big 12 Conference trolled Oklahoma head football coach Brent Venables on Tuesday.

On the heels of last weekend's 23-6 loss to Texas and ahead of Saturday's game against South Carolina, Venables discussed the strength of the SEC in comparison to Oklahoma's former conference on Tuesday, telling reporters: "This isn't the old Big 12 days where Oklahoma destroys everybody every single week except one game of the year."

That comment clearly didn't sit well with whoever runs the Big 12's X account, as it responded with a post that read: "Coach Venables lost eight Conference games in his two seasons in the Big 12."

After spending a decade as the defensive coordinator at Clemson and winning a pair of national titles along the way, Venables was hired to be the head coach of the Sooners in 2022.

Over his first two seasons at the helm, Oklahoma played in the Big 12, and he posted an overall record of 16-10 and a conference mark of 10-8.

Many of those losses came in Year 1 when Venables took over after Lincoln Riley somewhat abruptly left Oklahoma to become the head coach at USC.

After going 6-7 overall and 3-6 in Big 12 play in 2022, Venables and the Sooners improved significantly in 2023, going 10-3 with a 7-2 record in the Big 12.

Both Oklahoma and Texas left the Big 12 for the SEC last season, and there were some growing pains for the Sooners, as they went 6-7 overall and 2-6 in the conference in 2024.

The Sooners got off to a much better start this season, winning their first five games, including an SEC victory over Auburn, before falling to Texas last week.

While the Big 12 is still a power conference, there is plenty of evidence to support Venables' claim of the SEC being a step up in competition.

For starters, only one Big 12 team (Arizona State) reached the College Football Playoff last season, whereas three SEC teams made the field.

Also, Oklahoma made the CFP four times as a member of the Big 12, but no other Big 12 school made the CFP more than once during that time.

So far this season, six SEC teams are among the top 11 teams in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll, while 6-0 Texas Tech is the only Big 12 team in that range at No. 7.

Venables came across as critical of the Big 12 while praising the SEC, and while that understandably struck a chord with the Big 12, that doesn't mean Venables' assessment was inaccurate.