By Mike Kays
NORMAN — Sit down with Oklahoma defensive coordinator Brent Venables, and you’ll get a good dose of technical talk on most occasions.
Technical gave way to passionate emotion Saturday afternoon, thanks to a brilliant if not passionate defensive effort his unit put forth in a 27-0 victory over Oklahoma State.
The unit that was being ripped nationally for a lack of heart found it somewhere between the West Texas tumbleweeds and the comforts of Owen Field, where it seems as if things always seem to come up rosy, if not crimson, for the Sooners. The win streak there reached a national-best 30 with the victory.
“I think our guys played in an extremely desperate way where we were on edge all week,” he said. “I think they had a miserable week, we did as coaches, and I think our players really responded to the challenge.”
Moments later, he drove home the point further, pointing beyond last week’s showing to a season’s worth of adversity Oklahoma has faced. While most of the eight positions occupied Saturday by players who weren’t starting there at the outset of this 7-5 season were on the offensive side (six, compared to two), Venables was all about team and total effect when measuring the impact of this performance.
“I think this means a lot for the future, just how we responded to the adversity,” Venables said. “Everyone can act as if they’ve been in our shoes. Nobody in this country has had the same situation we’ve had. They might’ve had a guy banged up here or there, but nothing like we’ve had. To see our guys come up with the performance they did is quite gratifying.”
But the headliner has to be the defense, with an assist from the foot of punter Tress Way, whose 58.8 yard average helped keep the Cowboys pinned in less-than-stellar field position. Oklahoma held the Cowboys to 109 yards one week after coughing up a 549-yard, 41-13 hairball in Lubbock that opened a floodgate of criticism, a flow that kept going until ESPN took some final shots in its Game Day preview show at what was described on air as heartless tackling, reviewing clips from last week’s performance.
Defensive end Jeremy Beal, who finished with a team-high 10 tackles, four solo and two for lost yards, gave the ol’ “we don’t pay any attention to the media” in his postgame chat, but it didn’t take much prodding to know what he and his teammates have absorbed.
“Our pride was bruised because we know we didn’t play well,” he said. “We prepared this week as well as we have in any week of preparation. But we knew we can prepare all we want, we still had to go play well and that’s what we did.”
Defensively, the Sooners didn’t allow the Cowboys and quarterback Zac Robinson past the Oklahoma 45 all day. In fact, OSU’s deepest penetration came courtesy of the Sooners offense — and was snuffed out by the offense. Redshirt freshman running back Jermie Calhoun’s fumble was scooped up at the OU 20 by Cowboys middle linebacker Justin Gent, who carried it 55 yards to the 25 before tight end Clint Ratterree caught him, jarred the football loose and recovered the ball at that point.
One of the game’s key plays came on Sooners strong safety Jonathan Nelson’s third interception in as many games. His 37-yard return to the 13 set up a 12-yard TD by running back DeMarco Murray that put OU up 20-0 with 3:38 left in third quarter.
“We knew people were questioning whether this defense was a fluke and yes, we played an absolutely terrible game last week so people had a reason to think that,” Nelson said. “Which is why we needed to prove that we’re still one of the best defenses in the country. Today we did that and we got our confidence back.”
And with it, a lot of joy, illustrated in one scene by defensive tackle Gerald McCoy’s lap around Gaylord Family/Memorial Stadium sharing the Bedlam trophy with fans.
“Life’s going to throw you all kinds of curves,” he said. “In the end, you have to find a way to bounce back, pick yourself up and keep on fighting.”
And on Saturday, they delivered a knockout punch.
