Brent Venables Puts Oklahoma Players on Notice After Near Upset

Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables didn't hold back after his Sooners just squeaked by Houston on Saturday.

Oklahoma struggled against Houston, managing just 249 total yards in a 16-12 victory. Sophomore quarterback Jackson Arnold completed 19 of 32 passes for just 174 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. Oklahoma notched 75 yards and just 2.6 yards per carry on the ground.

The Sooners entered the matchup as a 28.5-point favorite, per ESPN BET . But Oklahoma didn't look like a four-touchdown favorite for most of the afternoon. Their only points of the second half came on a safety in the fourth quarter.

“Need to go back and evaluate a lot of things ," Venables said in his postgame press conference. "We got to get a heck of a lot better, quickly.”

Those comments were tame compared to what Venables said on the field during his postgame interview with Cole Cubelic of ESPN.

"We certainly deserved to lose," Venables said . "Great job on the defensive play to create the safety. The offense did a really nice job until we lost our minds and didn't play with discipline. We deserved to lose because we did everything we could possibly do to give somebody a chance to win."

Oklahoma's situation is going to get difficult quickly. They'll host Tulane next week, but Tennesee comes to town the week after. A matchup with Texas is also lurking on October 12.