Ready?
Kersey asked about the DL class and Kevonte Henry (since he signed after Venables was done Wednesday).
Enjoy
Brent Venables:
Yea. I mean, I brought it up yesterday and certainly I've had the good fortune to coach in eight National Championship games, 30 different playoff games through the years. And I say that not in a braggadocious way, but in a very humbling way, how hard I recognize it is to get there, play for a Conference Championship, to have a chance to play in the playoffs, certainly to have a chance to not only get in a National Championship game, but win it. And you better believe it starts at the line of scrimmages. That's where it always has been, always will be.
I'm watching that game a few weeks ago with Georgia and Alabama. That's what jumped out to me. The decade that I was at Clemson, we had the most sacks in college football, the most tackles for loss in college football. We had the most defensive lineman drafted in college football. And again, with the second winningest team in college football during that time, certainly it takes having a great playmaker at quarterback on one side of the ball, but you better believe you better be able to play great defense. You've got to have great people up front, guys that can play physical, guys that have length, that can stop the run and get after the quarterback.
It goes without saying, I thought that there's been a trend here as of lately that Oklahoma has done a better job at recruiting some defensive linemen. And so you look at Bonitto, or you look at Winfrey and some of these guys, and certainly the guys that we just signed. To me, watching all these guys walk out the front door up front and knowing that we're going to lose about seven guys in a year's period of time, we needed to start to reload right now, and also find some opportunity for some of the transfer guys to be able to come in and help us in that two-deep right away, as well.
So, you want to win the highest level man, you better believe you can't hide a weakness up front. There's a lot of things you can do to try to protect your weaknesses and enhance your strengths and play to your strengths. But man, if you're weak up front, it's going to be tough sledding. And then, just in regards to Kevonte, I mean, I've always been one to say, because again, if he started one fourth (silence) from a size standpoint. So, Kevonte has got great length, tremendous width, incredibly explosive, can really, really run. Him and R Mason, they can fly and they've got great frames and we've got fill them out and get some time in with Schmitty and the nutrition program's going to be great for them. But I would say Kevonte is a defensive end/outside linebacker, on the outside, as opposed to inside. And you never know how all that works once they get here and you get your hands on them and, but we love him in space. We love, again, help setting the edge and rushing the passer. He's got a real knack for it, a lot of natural ability.
We had a guy that led the nation in back-to-back years, in '13 and '14, named Vic Beasley that was about 6'4", about 235 as a senior. And just could never put a lot of weight on him, but he was a top-15 pick, maybe top-10 pick and on a defense that led the country in 13 categories. And he was a premier player and he's the guy that played, coming out of high school, only played on offense, tight end and running back. And he jacked around on offense for a couple years.
And finally his third year in college, after a redshirt freshman, his redshirt sophomore year, couple games into the year, he wasn't being used. We said, hey, let's throw him over on defense and see if he can rush the passer on third downs, because we knew he could run. He had freakish speed and athletic ability and he had a real knack for it, led our team in sacks at nine sacks. Then he comes back his fourth year in college, which again, just reinforces it's a developmental game. He's a two-star guy, maybe three-star guy, from a small country town, great athlete. But you get everybody on the bus, you still got to find a seat for him, get them in the right seat. And so finally, his fourth year in college, he starts his first college game and he goes on to lead the nation in sacks and beat Ohio State in the bowl game, the Orange Bowl. And we come back, and in '14, leads again in sacks and becomes a top-10 pick.
And so anyway, it's just a great reminder that it is a developmental game and sometimes it takes a little bit of time. One of the cool things I love about recruiting and coaching, every three to five years, cool thing about being in college is these guys get to graduate, and go chase their dreams, and become husbands, and fathers, and employees, employers. And it's really cool to help facilitate that growth and that development.
But people forget, sometimes when they show up, sometimes it's just add water, right? How many of y'all like to make those cookies or those brownies. All you got to do is add water, right? Ain't no mess. It's like, poof. We all know Adrian Peterson. Just add water, stay out of the way. Then some guys you've got to lay it all out. You take them out of the box, you got to spread everything out. You've got to unfold the instructions and, piece by piece, you put it together. And at the end of the day, you can get it to the same point. It just might take a little while. So, assembly required, the box says, right? It says batteries not included. So you've got some work to do, but that's okay too. That's a fun thing about coaching and developing and just really cool, there's so many countless stories.
That Vic Beasley, Adrian Peterson, those are generational kind of guys, man. You can't count on those guys. Gerald McCoy, Tommy Harris, some of those monsters. One of the funnest, most rewarding things, and that's a lot of fun to coach those guys, trust me, but it's very fulfilling and very rewarding when you get a guy that is just a piece of clay. They come in, and through a process of a lot of hard work and sweat equity, having some stick-to-it-iveness, they become something pretty special.
It's like a guy we had, this last year at Clemson, who's playing in the Senior Bowl this weekend. I was messaging back and forth with him earlier, Mario Goodrich. This is a guy that, if the transfer portal was available to him two years ago, he'd be the first one to tell you he probably would've bailed. And who knows how it would've turned out, but I know this, he stuck with it. He got his degree. He's four years into it, played on National Championship teams and had amazing experience. But most of all too, now that he's chasing his dream on the football field, real development. And you know what, if he doesn't come back and play this year, he doesn't go to the Senior Bowl, okay? He doesn't get that opportunity to impress, but through a body of work, before the year started, probably wouldn't have been a Senior Bowl guy.
But because of the season that he had, he earned the opportunity, okay? Earned it to have an opportunity to play in front of all these NFL Scouts, have a chance to really help himself in the draft, so that when he does get his one chance to go to the NFL, that you can go in the front door. Not in the back door and see if you can find a window that's open, or an unlocked door, that you can just get in and have a cup of coffee. He's created some potential longevity by being as prepared as he possibly could be, matured as he possibly could be. Just nine months ago, this opportunity wouldn't have been there. I know that'll probably fall on a lot of deaf years, but for me and our staff, it's got to be a reminder to us that we've got to do a great job in our evaluations and of being very thorough, have a long-term mindset too.
And then everybody else expects these guys all to come in here in year one, they're three or four-star, they had 20 offers or whatever. Who cares? That doesn't matter. You've got to start over. Every single one of them, whether nobody recruited them, which we've had those, whether they didn't have any scholarship offers. We had a safety at Clemson this year, was an All-American safety as a junior, he didn't have one other scholarship offer. Isaiah Simmons becomes an eighth pick in the draft and he was going to go to Louisville or Michigan as a receiver. And the guy becomes a Butkus Award winner through development, through a redshirt year and just a process. He didn't start his first game until his third year in college and becomes the eighth pick in the draft.
So, we got to just be very mindful. There's some patience. Everybody wants it to happen right now. That's me. I want to go, Triple A-gap blitz, press coverage, all day. I want to force the issue. But there's a process. Some things take a little bit more time, more nurturing. You've got to just water the bamboo. There's a story of the bamboo, Google it. It takes a little while for that bamboo to really take root. But if you ain't watering it, it ain't going to grow, I can promise you. So again, I would just say that there's going to be a good number of the guys in our program, being a developmental program that we want to be, where we've just got to water the bamboo and keep watering and don't grow weary and if you continue to just do what's right, it all pay off.
So that's my job is to make sure that we don't grow weary, that we have a level of patience. We're going to meet our players, right where they're at, and we're going to help them go to places. Really, that's what a coach's job is, to take them places that they're not capable of going on their own, and that's both on and off the field. That's what this game's all about. It's about developmental. So, we'll take all those just add waters that we can get, but there's a lot more that, again, assembly is required.
But the portal, long-winded answer, the portal gives you a little bit more opportunity, because of the experience, they may not be a first-rounder per se, a slam dunk, Adrian Peterson, but maybe it is just add water because of all the experience, the maturity that they have, the physical presence that they can bring, just because they're older guys. And not all the portal guys are that way, but a lot of them are.
I look at Trey Morrison, I look at Dillon Gabriel and McKade Mettauer, and Daniel Parker. Those are some guys that played a ton of football and even TD Root as well. So, just thinking about some different guys that we were really attracted to their maturity. And again, I wanted them come in and know how to work right away throw them in the weight room with Schmidtty. Man, these are guys that aren't going blink and I wanted our other players in our program to see that link. And I wanted our other players in our program to see that. These guys, they came here because they wanted to be pushed. They wanted to be challenged and they wanted to ... Again, they wanted to be a part of a program like Oklahoma, where they knew that if they were going to achieve something, they were going to have to earn it.
Kersey asked about the DL class and Kevonte Henry (since he signed after Venables was done Wednesday).
Enjoy
Brent Venables:
Yea. I mean, I brought it up yesterday and certainly I've had the good fortune to coach in eight National Championship games, 30 different playoff games through the years. And I say that not in a braggadocious way, but in a very humbling way, how hard I recognize it is to get there, play for a Conference Championship, to have a chance to play in the playoffs, certainly to have a chance to not only get in a National Championship game, but win it. And you better believe it starts at the line of scrimmages. That's where it always has been, always will be.
I'm watching that game a few weeks ago with Georgia and Alabama. That's what jumped out to me. The decade that I was at Clemson, we had the most sacks in college football, the most tackles for loss in college football. We had the most defensive lineman drafted in college football. And again, with the second winningest team in college football during that time, certainly it takes having a great playmaker at quarterback on one side of the ball, but you better believe you better be able to play great defense. You've got to have great people up front, guys that can play physical, guys that have length, that can stop the run and get after the quarterback.
It goes without saying, I thought that there's been a trend here as of lately that Oklahoma has done a better job at recruiting some defensive linemen. And so you look at Bonitto, or you look at Winfrey and some of these guys, and certainly the guys that we just signed. To me, watching all these guys walk out the front door up front and knowing that we're going to lose about seven guys in a year's period of time, we needed to start to reload right now, and also find some opportunity for some of the transfer guys to be able to come in and help us in that two-deep right away, as well.
So, you want to win the highest level man, you better believe you can't hide a weakness up front. There's a lot of things you can do to try to protect your weaknesses and enhance your strengths and play to your strengths. But man, if you're weak up front, it's going to be tough sledding. And then, just in regards to Kevonte, I mean, I've always been one to say, because again, if he started one fourth (silence) from a size standpoint. So, Kevonte has got great length, tremendous width, incredibly explosive, can really, really run. Him and R Mason, they can fly and they've got great frames and we've got fill them out and get some time in with Schmitty and the nutrition program's going to be great for them. But I would say Kevonte is a defensive end/outside linebacker, on the outside, as opposed to inside. And you never know how all that works once they get here and you get your hands on them and, but we love him in space. We love, again, help setting the edge and rushing the passer. He's got a real knack for it, a lot of natural ability.
We had a guy that led the nation in back-to-back years, in '13 and '14, named Vic Beasley that was about 6'4", about 235 as a senior. And just could never put a lot of weight on him, but he was a top-15 pick, maybe top-10 pick and on a defense that led the country in 13 categories. And he was a premier player and he's the guy that played, coming out of high school, only played on offense, tight end and running back. And he jacked around on offense for a couple years.
And finally his third year in college, after a redshirt freshman, his redshirt sophomore year, couple games into the year, he wasn't being used. We said, hey, let's throw him over on defense and see if he can rush the passer on third downs, because we knew he could run. He had freakish speed and athletic ability and he had a real knack for it, led our team in sacks at nine sacks. Then he comes back his fourth year in college, which again, just reinforces it's a developmental game. He's a two-star guy, maybe three-star guy, from a small country town, great athlete. But you get everybody on the bus, you still got to find a seat for him, get them in the right seat. And so finally, his fourth year in college, he starts his first college game and he goes on to lead the nation in sacks and beat Ohio State in the bowl game, the Orange Bowl. And we come back, and in '14, leads again in sacks and becomes a top-10 pick.
And so anyway, it's just a great reminder that it is a developmental game and sometimes it takes a little bit of time. One of the cool things I love about recruiting and coaching, every three to five years, cool thing about being in college is these guys get to graduate, and go chase their dreams, and become husbands, and fathers, and employees, employers. And it's really cool to help facilitate that growth and that development.
But people forget, sometimes when they show up, sometimes it's just add water, right? How many of y'all like to make those cookies or those brownies. All you got to do is add water, right? Ain't no mess. It's like, poof. We all know Adrian Peterson. Just add water, stay out of the way. Then some guys you've got to lay it all out. You take them out of the box, you got to spread everything out. You've got to unfold the instructions and, piece by piece, you put it together. And at the end of the day, you can get it to the same point. It just might take a little while. So, assembly required, the box says, right? It says batteries not included. So you've got some work to do, but that's okay too. That's a fun thing about coaching and developing and just really cool, there's so many countless stories.
That Vic Beasley, Adrian Peterson, those are generational kind of guys, man. You can't count on those guys. Gerald McCoy, Tommy Harris, some of those monsters. One of the funnest, most rewarding things, and that's a lot of fun to coach those guys, trust me, but it's very fulfilling and very rewarding when you get a guy that is just a piece of clay. They come in, and through a process of a lot of hard work and sweat equity, having some stick-to-it-iveness, they become something pretty special.
It's like a guy we had, this last year at Clemson, who's playing in the Senior Bowl this weekend. I was messaging back and forth with him earlier, Mario Goodrich. This is a guy that, if the transfer portal was available to him two years ago, he'd be the first one to tell you he probably would've bailed. And who knows how it would've turned out, but I know this, he stuck with it. He got his degree. He's four years into it, played on National Championship teams and had amazing experience. But most of all too, now that he's chasing his dream on the football field, real development. And you know what, if he doesn't come back and play this year, he doesn't go to the Senior Bowl, okay? He doesn't get that opportunity to impress, but through a body of work, before the year started, probably wouldn't have been a Senior Bowl guy.
But because of the season that he had, he earned the opportunity, okay? Earned it to have an opportunity to play in front of all these NFL Scouts, have a chance to really help himself in the draft, so that when he does get his one chance to go to the NFL, that you can go in the front door. Not in the back door and see if you can find a window that's open, or an unlocked door, that you can just get in and have a cup of coffee. He's created some potential longevity by being as prepared as he possibly could be, matured as he possibly could be. Just nine months ago, this opportunity wouldn't have been there. I know that'll probably fall on a lot of deaf years, but for me and our staff, it's got to be a reminder to us that we've got to do a great job in our evaluations and of being very thorough, have a long-term mindset too.
And then everybody else expects these guys all to come in here in year one, they're three or four-star, they had 20 offers or whatever. Who cares? That doesn't matter. You've got to start over. Every single one of them, whether nobody recruited them, which we've had those, whether they didn't have any scholarship offers. We had a safety at Clemson this year, was an All-American safety as a junior, he didn't have one other scholarship offer. Isaiah Simmons becomes an eighth pick in the draft and he was going to go to Louisville or Michigan as a receiver. And the guy becomes a Butkus Award winner through development, through a redshirt year and just a process. He didn't start his first game until his third year in college and becomes the eighth pick in the draft.
So, we got to just be very mindful. There's some patience. Everybody wants it to happen right now. That's me. I want to go, Triple A-gap blitz, press coverage, all day. I want to force the issue. But there's a process. Some things take a little bit more time, more nurturing. You've got to just water the bamboo. There's a story of the bamboo, Google it. It takes a little while for that bamboo to really take root. But if you ain't watering it, it ain't going to grow, I can promise you. So again, I would just say that there's going to be a good number of the guys in our program, being a developmental program that we want to be, where we've just got to water the bamboo and keep watering and don't grow weary and if you continue to just do what's right, it all pay off.
So that's my job is to make sure that we don't grow weary, that we have a level of patience. We're going to meet our players, right where they're at, and we're going to help them go to places. Really, that's what a coach's job is, to take them places that they're not capable of going on their own, and that's both on and off the field. That's what this game's all about. It's about developmental. So, we'll take all those just add waters that we can get, but there's a lot more that, again, assembly is required.
But the portal, long-winded answer, the portal gives you a little bit more opportunity, because of the experience, they may not be a first-rounder per se, a slam dunk, Adrian Peterson, but maybe it is just add water because of all the experience, the maturity that they have, the physical presence that they can bring, just because they're older guys. And not all the portal guys are that way, but a lot of them are.
I look at Trey Morrison, I look at Dillon Gabriel and McKade Mettauer, and Daniel Parker. Those are some guys that played a ton of football and even TD Root as well. So, just thinking about some different guys that we were really attracted to their maturity. And again, I wanted them come in and know how to work right away throw them in the weight room with Schmidtty. Man, these are guys that aren't going blink and I wanted our other players in our program to see that link. And I wanted our other players in our program to see that. These guys, they came here because they wanted to be pushed. They wanted to be challenged and they wanted to ... Again, they wanted to be a part of a program like Oklahoma, where they knew that if they were going to achieve something, they were going to have to earn it.
