Joe Castiglione comments on Oklahoma's 1-5 start to SEC play, belief in Brent Venables

Joe Castiglione met with reporters on Tuesday afternoon at Oklahoma’s regularly-scheduled Board of Regents meeting and addressed OU’s lackluster 2024 campaign.

Castiglione, who has served as Oklahoma’s athletic director since 1998, reiterated his support for coach Brent Venables despite Oklahoma’s 1-5 start to SEC play.

“We’re mindful that we haven’t met the Oklahoma standard for 2024,” Castiglione said, via the Tulsa World’s Eric Bailey. “That said, we truly believe in coach Venables and our team. We are completely focused on supporting them and looking at all the ways to address the needed improvements now as soon as possible as well in preparation for next year and working with coach Venables to help in all of that process.

“At the same time, we want to make sure we’re accentuating the strengths that we’re seeing developed in our program that are growing and performing at a rate that we also need to be successful in the SEC and beyond. So it’s a holistic approach to making sure that we’re focusing on all the important initiatives to support coach Venables and our team.”

Oklahoma has endured a disappointing debut season in the SEC. Most recently, the Sooners fell 30-23 at Missouri despite holding a lead late in regulation. OU’s only conference win this season came against Auburn.

Venables is in his third season at Oklahoma and signed a contract extension just before the start of the 2024 campaign.. He carries a 21-15 record into the final couple weeks of the 2024 season. The Sooners are idle in Week 12 before closing out the season against Alabama and LSU.

If Oklahoma does not pull off the upset in at least one of those games, it will miss a bowl game for the first time since 1998 — the year before Castiglione brought Bob Stoops to Norman.