Oklahoma's Defense Shows Brent Venables' 'Blueprint' for Success is Still Viable

Brent Venables has already turned Oklahoma’s defense into a talent pipeline.

Venables’ side of the ball powered the Sooners back to the College Football Playoff in 2025.

Stars along the defensive line like R Mason Thomas and Gracen Halton, as well as defensive tackle Damonic Williams, linebacker Kendal Daniels and safety Robert Spears-Jennings, were all drafted.

Still, OU’s defense projects to be fierce again.

Defensive end Taylor Wein was a breakout star last year, and he helped replace Thomas when he missed most of Oklahoma’s November run. Wein earned All-SEC Second Team honors, as voted on by the league’s coaches, and he’ll start alongside David Stone and Jayden Jackson, who are primed for larger roles in the defensive line rotation.

The Sooners have even more experience coming back, too.

OU’s top two tacklers — linebackers Kip Lewis and Owen Heinecke — return, as do three of its four starters in the secondary in Peyton Bowen, Eli Bowen and Courtland Guillory.

The bulk of OU’s defense signed with the Sooners out of high school, and transfer portal additions have been sprinkled in to improve the entire unit’s depth.

“That’s going to be the blueprint. That’s how we want to continue to build this thing,” Oklahoma general manager Jim Nagy said on The Franchise Morning Show at SEC Media Days.

Nagy was effusive in his praise for how Venables’ entire defensive coaching staff operates.

“It speaks to Coach Venables and the defensive staff not only playing a lot of players and giving guys reps and opportunities, but also the relationship piece is critical,” Nagy said. “All those guys, I won’t even single any of them out on that side of the ball, they do a great job with their relationships. And that’s critical right now in college football. Our roster retention is a primary goal every offseason, and to bring back every starter was, to me, that’s a big deal.”

Oklahoma wasn’t able to bring back every single piece on the defense, but the losses also weren’t debilitating.

“There’s a lot of teams across the country that lost good players,” Nagy said. “And we lost some guys that would have been good role players for us, but in this day and age in college football, you can’t keep everyone. That’s just not realistic. There’s going to be guys that want to go start somewhere else that don’t see a path to the field in Norman to be a starter. But, no. There’s just a lot of experience back.”

Nagy hopes the defensive blueprint can be replicated on the other side of the ball, as Ben Arbuckle looks to continue to build his offense in Norman.

“They had some turnover on that offensive staff,” Nagy said. “And when you have turnover on your staff, you’re going to have turnover on that side of the ball. So hopefully we can keep some continuity on that side and continue to build this thing that way.”

But Nagy believes that the Sooners’ retention efforts have the team in a great spot heading into the 2026 campaign.

“I think we’re the only team in the SEC coming into this year that we had — again, I’ve got to say this right. We were top five in least snaps lost and we were top five in most snaps gained in the portal,” Nagy said. “We netted out at over 8,800 snaps in the offseason. So when you add almost 9,00 snaps in an offseason — nothing matters more than experience. Especially in the SEC because it’s just so competitive week in and week out.”

Sign up to our free newsletter and follow us on Facebook and X for the latest news.

Add us as a preferred source on Google