	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF SEMIFINAL AT THE CAPITAL ONE ORANGE BOWL: CLEMSON VS OKLAHOMA

December 28, 2015

Brent Venables

Miami Gardens, Florida

Q. You obviously had a lack of experience. At what point, whether it was spring or fall or the Notre Dame game did you say we're up for this?
BRENT VENABLES: Yeah, you know, I know we were replacing both lines. We had one starter returning on the offensive and defensive lines. To say we would be in a College Playoff, I would have checked into an insane asylum. I remember thinking back to the Louisville game, there's no way in heck we're going to be able to win -- how are we going to find a way to win that game, four days' preparation, going on the road at their place. That's how I kind of think -- let alone get to Notre Dame. I never passed Louisville, and how are you going to stop -- the last time we played Wofford they should have beat us. That's kind of the world I lived in when you're asking me to go back and reflect, let alone losing all those monsters we had on defense a year ago.

My thing is leadership, toughness, and then we had no depth, so more snaps, durability. But leadership and play making, there's really three positions that I was really concerned. Linebacker was one, particularly B.J. Goodson, our middle linebacker, and then our defensive end, Kevin Dodd, had no real track record, B.J. had no real track record, and then Cordrea Tankersley had no real track record. Those three guys that we were going to be counting on was really big, and then their maturation, all three of them, had far exceeded my expectations. Those three have played outstanding this year, and have been to me -- that's not to downplay anybody else, but those three guys -- because I know we had enough guys that had played at the other positions, would be huge.

So again, I knew we were going to be good. Everybody else doubted us, but I never did (laughter), I'm usually not that guy, and I'm not Debbie Downer and I'm not a negative person. I'm a perpetuator of the positive, high energy, confidence, let's go, but I was worried about beating Wofford and stopping the option. That's really -- it's just one game at a time.

Q. Shaq said that he thought the Notre Dame game was incredibly important for their confidence. Would you agree?
BRENT VENABLES: Confidence?

Q. He said that the way the Notre Dame game ended, he said you said something about, okay, we can trust ourselves, we know what we're doing.
BRENT VENABLES: Yeah, we can screw it up and then find a way to get out of our own way, yeah. That was a great stop and that was a great play in our season. I was talking on the other side, and watching Oklahoma, and I tweeted Boomer, and of course I don't really tweet impulsively. I'm usually calculated for recruits. That's all I ever do. And then I'm like, yeah, that was a great win. Man, what a season-defining win that can be for Oklahoma, when they beat Tennessee after being 17 down, and as a fan of Coach Stoops, Joe Castiglione, President Ford, the Sooners, I was so pumped. Wow, I can't remember that was before or after our Notre Dame, but that was a wow stop. I'm like, what just happened? I was so peeved still about that little pick route they ran for the touchdown, the fade route, because we were in a good coverage and we had one player wave off the coverage and he was going to run his own coverage, so I was still mad about that, and we just won that game and we got that stop. That was a heck of a play. But they had scored on that earlier.

Q. Have you watched last year's Oklahoma game?
BRENT VENABLES: Yeah, we haven't watched it at all on defense. We haven't watched it at all.

Q. Why is that?
BRENT VENABLES: Well, they've got all new coaches coaching different positions and a completely new scheme. You know, I could tell you right now, I think Ronnie popped one, and I could tell you the defensive call and formation. I don't need to really watch it. He's a great player. Sterling is probably a shell of himself even though he's cleared and healthy, because it really has nothing to do with this year for us. It's just a different animal. But it's really the schemes as much as anything.

Q. (Inaudible) the result of that game.
BRENT VENABLES: Yeah, that doesn't matter. That's living in la-la land. Every year you play, you've got to start over and you have to earn everything again. You've got to tear everything down from week to week, season to season. You look at Oklahoma and look at where they feel like they are mentally from their last game from a year ago, and now all of a sudden they lost their bowl game, they have no momentum, and they're going to get rid of everybody, and it's time for Coach Stoops to go and everything else. I know that animal, whether it's at Oklahoma or whether it's at Clemson or it's at Bowling Green. It doesn't matter, whether it's at Texas. You're always a week away from humility. It's a very fragile game, and a lot of times, win or lose, it comes down to having really good players, and then having really good players play well, and then you've got to coach them well, too, don't get me wrong. But look where they are one year later, or even less than that. They went from that last game to then look at the run that they've had.

Q. Is it an advantage now for Oklahoma since you were coaching there?
BRENT VENABLES: I don't really believe in that.

Q. You don't?
BRENT VENABLES: Yeah, I just don't. I think going into last year, they had a very good offense, and they said, well, Trevor Knight killed Alabama in their last bowl game, and Clemson hadn't seen a Big 12 offense, so there's always that story line, and then you've just got to kind of go in and find that game. We weren't 46 better. Everybody knows that. Turnovers are always a big part of the game and momentum, and things went our way, and some things didn't go their way, a few plays, and next thing you know it gets out of hand. But that was last year. I really think it has zero to do -- they might think different. I don't really care, and it doesn't affect me and it doesn't affect us what they think. It really affects -- what affects this game is how we think and our preparation and how we practice today. It really is that simple. I think when you get ahead of yourself -- I don't know, I have too much consumption on today's third downs, you know, and I think when you get your players to buy into that, I think ultimately you have more success than failure.

Q. When you break away and go out on your own and you're involved in putting together a defense with the up tempo, high explosive offense, what have you learned just out on your own about being a defensive coordinator in this kind of era? It started obviously in the Big 12.
BRENT VENABLES: Yeah, I think it helps to have good players. I think being long, being athletic and physical in the back end, I don't think that you can just have a bunch of cover guys. I'm not listening to myself as I'm talking. I'm thinking out loud here. But you want the biggest, strongest, fastest guys that you can.

I know from the ACC, it isn't just all four wides. I really have grown to appreciate about the ACC is you kind of see everything from the Boston College and nine tight ends and 15 offensive linemen and all these crazy formations, very Stanford-like, to Georgia Tech and the triple option, to North Carolina, which is one of the closest versions probably to the Big 12 and what you see week in and week out in the Big 12.

But I don't know what all I've learned. It was hard, I know that. It was really hard teaching a new system, starting over. It's one thing for me to start over and learn somebody else's, but when you've having to teach it to all new players and new coaches, it's hard. It was hard trying to simplify some things from a verbiage standpoint and communicative standpoint, and then really instead of making the new players adapt to you and your coaches as you establish yourself over a period of time, you really had to -- okay, how are they looking at it and how are they thinking, and now how can I get them to be confident and sure of themselves and all those things. But adapting to a new culture, a new philosophy from a coaching staff-wise, and I've got to plug into them, not the other way around, and that's always a transition. I say always like I've done it nine, ten times. That was a transition. That was very hard emotionally.

Those are all things that help you. You grow and you kind of stretch, get out of your comfort zone. I think for all of us, sometimes as hard as that is, it really just helps you, whether you view things differently or things like that.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297