On3 Roundtable: Oklahoma defense must live up to Brent Venables standard in 2023

Brent Venables arrived in Norman with the expectation of turning Oklahoma into an elite defensive powerhouse — but that simply was not the case during his first season as head coach.

In 2022, the Sooners ranked 122 nationally in total defense, seeing Oklahoma give up 461 yards per game, and come into the season having ranked No. 99 overall in scoring defense. Sooner Scoop’s Carey Murdock joined Andy Staples on the On3 Roundtable to discuss what tweaks need to be made if OU wants to find success in 2023.

“It was such a combination of players that were never really held accountable to the standard that Brent Venables holds you in terms of blowing assignments, not being where you’re supposed to be,” Murdock said. “Their best player is Danny Stutsman, and there were times last year when the defense would continue to have problems, and we’d ask how does this keep happening, and they had no answer.

“That’s because the answer was basically, ‘We’re not doing what we’re being coached to do.’ That was a leadership issue, I think, so that’s something that needs to be solved. I do think that they have talent. Here’s what tells you a lot about the OU defense — they lost a lot of starters from a year ago … but they didn’t lose a lot of production.”

Stutsman, who finished last season with a team-high 70 solo tackles (124 total), EDGE Ethan Downs and S Billy Bowman enter 2023 as presumed second-year starters after productive seasons a year ago. EDGE’s Dasan McCullough and Rondell Bothroyd, and DB Reggie Pearson figure to be instant-impact players on Vanables’ defense out of the transfer portal as well.

Matchups against the likes of typical high-powered offenses such as SMU, Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma State, among others, will give the Sooners’ defense multiple opportunities throughout the season to prove they’re ready to make the jump to the SEC next summer and that 2022 was a one-off blip on the radar.

Finishing the year 6-7 overall, it was only the second time in seven years that the Sooners failed to win at least 10 games. The other instance saw them finish the 11-game 2020 season 9-2 overall.

On an earlier episode of the On3 Roundtable, Murdock’s colleague said that anything less than nine wins would be, “pretty disappointing,” for the Sooners in 2023. Simply put, Venables could be in hot water if Oklahoma heads into the SEC coming off consecutive losing seasons. The Sooners chose to join the SEC to compete against the best, not collapse — and it starts with improving the defensive unit.