Brent Venables reacts to Oklahoma's special teams struggles in loss to Alabama

In their first meeting this season, the Oklahoma Sooners managed to beat the Alabama Crimson Tide on the back of strong special teams play. That flipped in the College Football Playoff and it ended up playing a major role in the loss for the Sooners.

Between a botched punt and multiple missed kicks, it was a long night for Oklahoma. In the aftermath of that loss, Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables shared some of his thoughts on the team’s struggles.

“Again, nothing surprises me,” Brent Venables said. “It’s football. There was a heck of a lot more that was amazing than poor. So, I put it all in perspective. I know what it takes, the strength of this football team. Those things couldn’t afford to play poorly against a good team at times. At times, we were solid. At times, we weren’t what we needed to be.”

After jumping out to a 17-0 lead, Oklahoma had to try and withstand a counterpunch from Alabama. Special teams mistakes made it that much harder to do so, however. That included a botched punt, which gave the Crimson Tide offense a short field.

Throughout the season, Venables has leaned on kicker Tate Sandell, and for good reason too. Going into the Playoff game, he hadn’t missed a kick since Week 1 and became the Lou Groza Award winner as the nation’s top kicker. However, he missed twice against Alabama. One of those kicks was a long 51-yard kick late in the game when the Sooners needed two possessions were trying to score quickly.

“But, again, you look at the body of work. The scoreboard’s all that matters. I know what we preached the last time when we played them. But you go down and you look, and you would’ve, without seeing some of the penalties,” Venables said. “And some of the, maybe, the special teams plays, you look at the statistics, and you would’ve thought, and it was. We had our opportunities all the way to the end, despite some of those issues. That just shows you the type of team that we had. We had the ability and the opportunities to overcome that even in just the last several minutes of the game, despite some just incredibly critical mistakes.”

In the end, Alabama won 34-24 and Oklahoma became the first team hosting a Playoff game to lose. Still, it was a strong 10-3 season for the Sooners, giving Venables something to build on.

“Just wasn’t in the card for us tonight,” Venables said. “But that group of guys, we wouldn’t be in the position we were tonight had it not been for the consistency and how special they have been all year long.”