Oklahoma Sooners

NORMAN, Okla. – When Bob Stoops brought his brother back to Norman, he envisioned recapturing the magic that generated some of the best defenses in Oklahoma history.

Instead, Stoops will now have to hire a linebacker coach.

Wednesday night, co-defensive coordinator Brent Venables announced that he has left Oklahoma to become the defensive coordinator at Clemson, leaving the Sooners with another coaching vacancy.

In hiring Mike Stoops last week, Bob Stoops believed he was getting the band back together.

With Mike Stoops calling the defense and Venables co-coordinating, the Sooners ranked third nationally in fewest yards allowed in 2003. In 2001, Oklahoma ranked fourth.

And in the 2000 national championship game, the Stoops brothers and Venables devised a defensive game plan for the ages as the Sooners kept Florida State’s high-powered offense from scoring.

Too much time, however, had passed. And Bob Stoops’ hopes proved to be short-lived. After Venables and Mike Stoops took a recruiting trip together to Florida, Venables and his wife flew to Clemson. And the allure of a new challenge, a massive pay raise and the chance to call his own defense again won out.

Because of the success the Sooners endured while Mike Stoops was the senior partner in the relationship, Venables was never fully appreciated by the Oklahoma fan base. Moreover, the explosion of Big 12 offenses after Mike Stoops left made it virtually impossible to produce top five defenses.

But Venables still coordinated some gems that helped catapult the Sooners to Big 12 championships in ’06, ’08 and ’10.

In 2008, the Sooners wiped out second-ranked Texas Tech by holding one of the nation’s top offenses to a single touchdown in the first half. OU went on to play for a national championship that season.

But perhaps his most memorable coaching job came in the final game of the ’10 regular season against Oklahoma State. Faced with the task of slowing down the high-powered Cowboys, Bob Stoops and Venables elected to revamp the entire defense, going to a 3-4 scheme. The shift stunned the Cowboys, and Oklahoma State managed only three offensive touchdowns as Oklahoma prevailed.

But as much as the Sooners will miss Venables as a coordinator and linebackers coach, they will miss him just as much as an ace recruiter.

Ronnell Lewis, Demontre Hurst, Tom Wort, Corey Nelson, Austin Box, Jamell Fleming and DeMarco Murray are just a few of the standouts Venables had a hand in recruiting to Norman in recent years.

He also was the assistant who secured two of OU’s top verbal commitments in this recruiting class: safety Eric Striker and running back Daniel Brooks. Venables also was the primary assistant recruiting California cornerback Brandon Beaver, who is scheduled to visit OU this weekend.

Bob Stoops tried to get the band back together. With his brother and Venables blazing the recruiting trail as a tandem, then forging those ferocious defenses again on the field.

Instead, the Stoopses will be on their own. Turned out, the band didn’t get back together.

Though the recent departure of four-star cornerback De’Vante Harris (Mesquite, Texas/Horn) is a big blow to Oklahoma 2012 defensive backs class, it hasn’t really impacted the Sooners' standing in the rankings.

The Sooners dropped to No. 10 in the latest ESPN class rankings released on Thursday. But once again, it was a case of what another team did more than what OU failed to do.

California had a huge recruiting weekend, picking up one big-time commit after another at the U.S. Army All-American Bowl and vaulted from No. 19 to No. 8.

In the last set of rankings, it was Georgia who scored some quality prospects to jump OU.

While it’s nice the Sooners haven’t fallen too far behind, it would be nice for OU fans if they had something to celebrate.

Nothing has changed with OU’s class, where clearly the strength of the group is on offense. The Sooners’ top 11-ranked recruits are on offense, including all four in the ESPNU 150.

And if the Sooners are going to make a leap up in the rankings, it will most likely happen because of the offense once again as OU is in the hunt for third-ranked prospect Dorial Green-Beckham (Springfield, Mo./Hillcrest) and offensive tackle Zach Banner (Lakewood, Wash./Lakes), ranked No. 123. Green-Beckham's final five are OU, Arkansas, Texas, Missouri and Alabama, while Banner's top three are OU, USC and Washington.

The Sooners are also in the mix for a couple of three-star running backs in David Smith (Midlothian, Ill./Bremen) and Boston College commit Akeel Lynch (Athol Springs, N.Y./St. Francis). Both are making official visits to OU this weekend and Smith has narrowed his choices down to OU or West Virginia.

On defense the name to watch is cornerback Brandon Beaver (Compton, Calif./Dominguez). A four-star defensive back, Beaver is ranked No. 20 at the position and is making an official visit to OU next weekend.