Brent Venables may be able to breathe easy when Oklahoma calls upon its kicker this season.
Through Venables' first three seasons as head coach, the Sooners' kicking game has been rather uneven. Zach Schmit struggled in 2022 and 2023, missing six field goal attempts in each season—as OU dropped five games by a margin of three points or fewer—before finding his footing last season, making 9-of-11 tries after taking over for Tyler Keltner, who experienced some struggles of his own (two missed field goals inside 45 yards and a missed PAT) during the first half of the season.
Then, in the spring, Oklahoma's new crop of kickers — redshirt freshman Liam Evans and transfers Austin Welch and Grayson Miller — displayed their own inconsistencies over the course of 15 practices. It left Venables feeling somewhat uneasy about the position, saying after the Crimson Combine that the best version of the kicking game was good while "the worst version was not good."