The matchup popped up on the screen, and that same familiar sense of ambivalence washed over Brent Venables.
No. 1 Clemson vs. No. 4 Oklahoma in the Capital One Orange Bowl. The biggest game of Venables' career at Clemson, played against the school where he'd first tasted success as an assistant coach.
"Are you serious?" Venables blurted.
This isn't new terrain. Venables endured the mixed emotions -- part reunion, part revenge -- last season, when his Tigers walloped Oklahoma in the Russell Athletic Bowl. That game had none of the build-up, pageantry or stakes of this season's Orange Bowl, but still included all of the awkwardness afforded in a meeting between mentor and protégé years after their working relationship splintered.
Venables wasn't expecting a rematch so soon, but if he was flustered for a moment, the focus returned quickly.
Ask him now, and Venables insists his familiarity with Oklahoma, where he served 13 years as an assistant coach under Bob Stoops, winning a national championship along the way, will have no effect on the outcome of the Orange Bowl. It will be about which team is better prepared, which team wants it more, which team has refined its game plan and executes it with precision.
Preparation is the tonic for that sinking feeling in Venables' stomach as he learned his path in the 2015 College Football Playoff would begin with the Sooners.
"That was it," Venables said. "It was back to work."
Venables' departure from Oklahoma came under less-than-ideal circumstances, but he insists there was never an ounce of animosity.
After the 2011 season, one in which Venables' defense finished 55th nationally for a 10-3 Sooners team, Stoops hired his brother, Mike, to serve as co-defensive coordinator, with plans for him to share duties with Venables the following season. This was a relationship Venables had already managed for four seasons before Mike had left to become head coach at Arizona, and he said Mike's return to the fold at Oklahoma didn't push him to leave.
In fact, Venables said, he nearly stayed put.
With an offer in hand from Clemson, Venables sat at the airport in Oklahoma City and wondered whether he should board the plane. It was, if he's being honest, a moment of sheer terror.
"Sometimes you have too much testosterone to admit it, but I was scared for my family," Venables said. "I was scared for myself professionally. I was in a comfort zone. It's Oklahoma. That's not a stepping-stone job. To walk away from the only home my children had known, that's really hard."
There was a fear in standing still, too. For all the perceived animosity surrounding the shake-up on the defensive staff, it was complacency that really nagged at Venables. He'd spent nearly his entire coaching career working for Bob Stoops -- living the highs of a championship soon after arriving then, as Venables described it, "failing miserably" in subsequent opportunities.
It was time to move on, he decided. Clemson coach Dabo Swinney had given Venables the hard sell. The Tigers were a team on the verge of something bigger, and Venables could provide the finishing touch. The future was uncertain, but that's how it's supposed to be, Venables thought.
"If you're not evolving, you're dying," Venables said. "I really believe that."
This season has been a year of evolution for Clemson's defense and for Venables.
A season ago, Venables' job was easy. His defense was chock-full of senior stars. Vic Beasley, Grady Jarrett, Stephone Anthony -- those players virtually coached themselves. They had a desire, Venables said, not just to be great, but to define an era of Tigers football. The result was the No. 1 defense in the country and, as it turned out, a dominant victory against Oklahoma in their bowl game.
After toppling the Sooners, Beasley left. Jarrett and Anthony, too. Nine of the 11 starters on Clemson's defense were gone, in fact. And so the offseason began with Venables rewriting the script.
"Last year's group was so fun to be a part of because they just loved every aspect of the grind and preparation and competing," Venables said. "But this group is special in its own right."
Without Beasley, Shaq Lawson has blossomed into one of the elite pass-rushers in the nation. Without Anthony, linebackers Ben Boulware and B.J. Goodson thrived. Without last season's leaders, new ones emerged.
The result was another stellar unit, a defense that ended the regular season ranked first in completion percentage allowed, second in tackles for loss and second in defensive efficiency.
Venables hasn't played quite as aggressively, hasn't rotated backups in as often, but he's once again pieced together a defense that is as good as any in the nation.
"They do a lot, but Brent always has," Stoops said. "They're disruptive and get tackles for loss and get pressure."
All of which should be interesting for an Oklahoma offensive line that may be the team's Achilles' heel. But Venables gushes over the nightmare of quarterback Baker Mayfield, the speed of receiver Sterling Shepard and the power of tailback Samaje Perine.
In other words, it's a mutual admiration society -- no ill will, nothing but respect. Respect, and a desire to annihilate the opposition.
"I know the mantra and how they'll approach the game," Venables said. "I can hear it now. [Stoops] will be playing up last year's game. Who wouldn't?"
After so much success at Clemson, Venables is as widely respected a coordinator as there is in the country. That itch to move on, to not grow stale, to test the waters elsewhere could be scratched easily. Schools with head-coaching vacancies have called. But Venables isn't interested.
He learned a lot from Stoops, from his time in Oklahoma, but the thing that's really stuck with Venables is how hard it is to leave. The Sooners were home for a long time, and he was lucky to find another place that offered that same level of comfort.
"What I had hoped for here," he said, "it's been even better."
On the other side, Venables still sees friends. He had dinner with Mike Stoops a few days before last season's game, shook hands with pals on the opposite sideline before kickoff.
"Those are deep-seeded relationships and that won't ever change," Venables said. "This is just part of the success all of us are having, and that's a good problem to have."
It's a funny thing, Venables said. He left a place he loved to find one that's even better, and now he doesn't see much need to push his luck again. This is home now, at Clemson, and he's pushing as hard as he can to win. That's another thing he learned at Oklahoma. These opportunities are rare, and they slip away quickly if you're not prepared.
Clemson is facing off against Oklahoma not because the fates conspired against Venables for the second straight season, but because both are exceptional programs. That's it, Venables said. That's the story. There's no sense in getting fired up about the past, because the present is far too tough a task.
"You're a competitor, you recognize the challenge, and you want an opportunity to play for a championship," he said. "If you start using ulterior motives to get you fired up, I don't believe in that."