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Oklahoma Names Permanent Season Captains

The Sooners voted on captains for Team 129, and four seniors and three juniors received the honor of being called OU captains.
John E. Hoover|
Oklahoma Names Permanent Season Captains
Oklahoma Names Permanent Season Captains

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Oklahoma Sooners

NORMAN — Oklahoma announced its permanent team captains on Monday, and there were few surprises.

Eleven games into the season, and with only Friday’s 11 a.m. kickoff against TCU remaining on the schedule, four seniors and three juniors were voted by their teammates as captains for the 2023 season.

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“Their work ethic, their consistency, their ability just to be a light — sometimes in some dark moments, too,” head coach Brent Venables said Monday. “And, you know, they've not flinched. They've been the model of what you want from the ability to overcome. I believe that your real value comes from what you overcome, not what you become.”

Senior quarterback Dillon Gabriel, senior offensive guard McKade Mettauer, senior slot receiver Drake Stoops, senior cornerback Woodi Washington, junior safety Billy Bowman, junior defensive end Ethan Downs and junior linebacker Danny Stutsman were named as captains.

Venables coaches OU linebackers, so Stutsman is particularly close to his heart.

“Leadership is not a position. It's not a title. It's action,” Venables said. “And, man, he's been all about it. I can't say enough about what he has been for that group (of linebackers). …

“Love everything about Danny Stutsman. We can't brag on him enough and what he has meant to the defense and the group, his leadership. … Can’t brag enough about his leadership … this perspective and his investment in the guys around him.”

Bowman, who hails from Denton, TX, was named Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week on Monday after his game-changing interception at BYU that he returned 100 yards for a touchdown.

“There's nobody that's more highly invested than Billy,” Venables said.

Washington is a fifth-year senior and fourth-year starter from Tennessee and has led a constantly evolving OU cornerback group.

“Man, he's been great in every way you would want an older guy to be,” Venables said.

Stoops is a former walk-on and son of the winningest coach in program history who also leads the team in catches and touchdown receptions this year.

Mettauer is the former transfer and starter from Cal who grew up in Houston cheering for the Sooners. 

Gabriel, from Hawaii, is the former transfer and starter from UCF who was on his way to UCLA to finish his college career before getting a call from his old UCF offensive coordinator, Jeff Lebby. 

Downs comes from Weatherford a Sooner fan and is a two-year starter who leads the team in sacks.

Stutsman signed with OU out of Florida and has become the defensive leader -- in tackles, tackles for loss and inspirational moments.

Venables said the group — again, voted by their teammates — has shown exquisite and forceful leadership in several areas in his two seasons.

“There ain’t no dead batteries in that locker room,” Venables said.

“They're just a model of consistency, highly invested guys. “They've been amazing — make everybody around them better. They got the kind of toughness that you want your program to be all about. They value their opportunity every single day. They know that their time is limited and their roles are important and their platform is important and their influence is important. So again, all the selfless traits that you got to have — the work ethic, the toughness, the ability to persevere and endure is something I never take lightly.

“It's easy to be a leader the day here, day there when you feel good. These are guys that show up, no matter what the circumstances are. You know, they're a group of guys that will move the coach out of the way and say, ‘I got this, coach.’ And you don't always have that.”

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John E. Hoover
JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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