The official terms of the buyout for Brent Venables’ new contract extension at Oklahoma are now known.
SoonerScoop’s George Stoia obtained the contract, he reported, which was approved last month by the Board of Regents.
It would cost Oklahoma $51.67 million to move on from Venables at the end of the 2026 season.
That number drops by $10 million each year until 2030, when it would cost $5.83 million. The buyout drops again to $830,000 following the 2031 season.
Venables earned the extension following last year’s campaign, where he led the Sooners back to the College Football Playoff for the first time since 2019.
The extension came later than typical in the coaching contract cycle, due in large part to athletic director Roger Denny taking over his post in February.
“I give Brent a lot of credit that that conversation had started, but I got here and he gave me the grace and patience to get myself settled, spend some time together, get to know one another, get to know my bosses, start to figure out how we get those things through the system,” Denny told a group of local reporters before the season started.
“And we just stayed in contact on it and kept moving it along, first slowly and then here over the last couple of weeks pretty quickly.”
The Sooners are off to a 3-2 start in 2026. OU dropped this year’s return trip to Michigan and fell to Georgia in Athens before rallying to beat Texas 27-24 last week in the Red River Rivalry.
Entering Saturday’s contest against Kentucky, Oklahoma is 35-22 under Venables in the midst of his fifth year at the helm of the program.
Four of those losses are postseason losses, with Venables falling in three bowl games and to Alabama in the 2025 College Football Playoff.
The Sooners are currently in the logjam of teams with one loss in SEC play following the victory over the Longhorns.
Oklahoma also extended general manager Jim Nagy over the offseason.
“The opportunity to really tie the core leadership of our program together and build a program around stability right now, when everything in our world seems to be around change, is a strategy that we’re going to lean into,” Denny said. “And I couldn’t be more confident in how those two guys work together and will build the future of our program.”
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