Dean Blevins: Brent Venables’ crucial season, Thunder’s title hopes, & OU’s big moves

On this miserably cold, slick, and wet February Tuesday, my thoughts are with the less fortunate—prayers up for any in these awfully difficult circumstances.

🏈 A Big Season for OU Football

Everyone reading this knows 2025 is a huge season for fourth-year OU Head Coach Brent Venables. His hiring of Kevin Wilson as an offensive analyst is very wise. Kevin was tremendous with a decade under Bob Stoops serving as O-Line coach & offensive coordinator. He was a terrific recruiter as well helping Oklahoma become the best team in the first decade of the new century.

🤝 A Great Addition to the Coaching Staff

A no-frills guy when it’s time to get serious, Wilson should also be extremely valuable to Venables, who has again taken on the huge responsibility of running the defense. I’ve been against BV having to spend an enormous amount of time and focus to run a defense, mostly after becoming a 50-year-old head coach for the first time. His gameday results were not up to OU standards – or any winning standards of programs across America. But now, BV gets to do what he does as well as any; be in charge of a defense that was in disarray when he arrived but has become a strength since. Kevin’s head coaching stints – including Tulsa most recently – will aid Venables greatly. The only way this hire doesn’t help a great deal is if the new OC Ben Arbuckle and Wilson don’t work well together – and I seriously don’t see that happening. Kevin’s successful working knowledge of offensive line coaching should only help Bill Bedenbaugh lead a beat-up but awful O-Line season in ’25.

Quick note: It is time for 5-star recruit PJ Adebawore to take a big leap forward and make a much bigger impact at the defensive end than he’s made so far in two seasons.

🏀 Local Hoops Action

A pair of local teams hoping to heat up arenas Tuesday night. The Sooner men's basketball plays at No. 2 Florida looking for a mini miracle at 6 p.m. on ESPN2. After an auspicious 13-0 non-conference start, OU has lost 4 straight, including one of the weakest finishes in my 60 years of being close to the program. Lowly LSU goes from down 5 with 25 seconds left to an 8-nothing finish leaving the team feeling helpless at 3-9 in SEC play. They finish the season with six straight Quad 1 games, the last five vs. Top 25 opponents.

🏀 Cowgirls in Action

The No. 23 OSU women are enjoying a much better season but have a tough one tonight at Utah. Both 20-5 overall with OSU having a slight Big 12 advantage at 10-4 to Utah’s 11-3 record.

🥎 Softball Rankings

Cowgirl pitcher Katie Kutz is named Big 12 Pitcher of the Week. OSU is ranked 13th by Softball USA/ESPN.com.

Other softball rankings of note see unbeaten Texas at No. 1 and unbeaten Oklahoma at No. 2. OU has won four straight by run rule and the new-look team is off to a salty start. Florida is 3rd and Arkansas is tenth.

📈 High Hopes for the Thunder

Finally, the good part: Your OKC Thunder! After a brilliant 44-10 start before the All-Star game, Big Blue has 28 games to solidify even more so. The most needed is for the return from injury of Chet Holmgren to see steady and significant improvement. The offseason pickup of 7-1 Isaiah Hartenstein – (pronounced HART-en-schtine) – has proven to be another Presti-winning move. But the two must work to be on the court together and develop the mandatory chemistry needed for this talented team to bring OKC its first NBA title.

Ever notice if you’ve got a great team how when you look at a schedule the games don’t seem as daunting as when you’re a bottom feeder? Point is, the Thunder faces a challenging but manageable schedule for the rest of the month:

📆 Upcoming Thunder Games

1. 2/21 at the lowly Jazz
2. 2/23 at Minnesota, where they stunk it up and lost in their final game before the break (on ESPN)
3. 2/24, yes the next night, the T-Wolves are in Paycom Center for a meaningful bout (on NBATV)
4. 2/26 at so-so Brooklyn
5. 2/28 in Atlanta to play another Trae Young Hawk’s team that is not much of a threat unless OKC is not focused

Here’s to hoping for good health for this current team that’s seen way too many injuries that led to missed time. I’m most interested in newcomer Alex Caruso healing up and being the defensive menace he is on a regular basis. He’s coming off the fifth time he’s missed games due to injury. That doesn’t bode well moving forward, but getting him healthy enough to be a unique contributor is one of the things that separates OKC from the rest of the league.

The Thunder is slightly favored over the defending champion Celtics to win the NBA championship. And SGA is the prohibitive favorite to win MVP. Just imagine how this city and state will react to those two things coming to fruition.

Have a good day and remember to help and pray for the less fortunate and the animals on this treacherous few days of weather.