Tracking Brent Venables: A day spent chasing the biggest story in college football

Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione made his way from GSP to Venables' lake house before the deal was announced.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Mon Dec 06 08:00:05 GMT-04:00 2021

Sunday was quite the day.

Rumors have swirled around the Clemson football program for over a week about defensive coordinator Brent Venables and offensive coordinator Tony Elliott, and at the end of the week, about Athletic Director Dan Radakovich. It was hard, as many could tell, to separate truth from rumor and fact from fiction in the wild world of social media, and I texted and called the usual suspects in trying to figure out the next move for the trio, when I got a text early Sunday that said, “Get to work. We might have just hit the bad trifecta.”

So, figuring the next move would be about Venables, I got to work, and it was an old-school chase across two airports, a lot of waiting, several miles of highway, and a lot of stalking.

And it was a blast.

I’ll start with the basics – I love anything and everything to do with flying, and I have an app called FlightRadar that I love to use. I can pull up a map and track any flight in the world, real-time, with airspeed and altitude, arrival and departure times, and can even check the boards of every airport to see what planes are on the ground and which ones are in the air. You can even point it in the sky and it will find planes and it will tell you which type of plane, the route, etc. And, of course I’ve used it this week to try and track planes from Norman, Oklahoma, to somewhere around here. Sunday, I hit paydirt, noticing a flight that had originated in Dallas, was headed to Anderson and was scheduled to head back to Norman later in the afternoon. Bingo.

I rounded up a camera and made my way to the Anderson airport to wait, wondering who or what I would see. And I hadn’t been parked more than ten minutes when I noticed that the flight had been diverted from Anderson (why I don’t know) to Greenville-Spartanburg. I noticed I had enough time to make the trip from Anderson to GSP and away I went, making calls as I drove down I-85.

I found the private flight area of GSP, walked into the waiting room, and asked about the “flight from Dallas” and was told it would be on the ground in a few minutes. I didn’t see Brent Venables or any of his family, so I wondered if this was OU simply coming to meet him. I watched the OU President Joseph Harroz Jr. and AD Joe Castiglione and the head of the Sooner Club get off the plane and go to a waiting car, where I received the terse statement from Castiglione about something being said “in due time.”

Oklahoma AD lands at GSP to finalize contract with Brent Venables https://t.co/fDFJiScaCM
— TigerNet.com (@ClemsonTigerNet) December 5, 2021

I went back to the car and jumped on I-85 to head home and noticed that the car was ahead of me. So I followed. All the way to the Venables' lake house. I took the photos of the AD and president getting out of the car and thought my day was done.

LOOK: Oklahoma AD visits Brent Venables at his lakehousehttps://t.co/4EtSV0Q0Cs pic.twitter.com/JdniIpr0jm
— TigerNet.com (@ClemsonTigerNet) December 5, 2021

Except…..that flight app told me that the plane was moving, from GSP to Anderson, and was scheduled for departure a little after 5 pm. I gassed up at the QT in Pendleton and made my way from Lake Keowee to the Anderson airport. I arrived about 4:50 pm and started the wait, knowing that if I saw Venables get on the plane with the OU folks that he was their new head coach. I waited. And I waited. And I waited.

Finally, about 7:30 or so the car carrying the OU traveling party arrived – without Venables. The airport opened a gate that led out onto the tarmac and the waiting plane. However, 15 minutes after their arrival that gate was still open, the plane’s door was still open, and the plane’s engines began to spool.

More waiting, followed by the arrival of the Venables clan in different vehicles. The OU brass met him outside the plane with big hugs, which said it all, and then I turned around and saw Jake and Tyler Venables heading toward the plane. We exchanged pleasantries and I told them to tell their dad that I was happy for him (even though he already knew), and my day was coming to a close, almost nine hours after it started.

Venables had a huge smile on his face as he hugged OU AD Joe Castiglione and the school president.
— David Hood (@MDavidHood) December 6, 2021

And while Sunday ended with one resolution, there are more to come, and if anyone has a nice car with extra room and maybe a small fridge, we can work out an arrangement.