Brent Venables Clarifies Oklahoma's DB Depth Chart: 'We Just Look for Football Players'

With so much talent, so many options and so much versatility, coaches had some difficult decisions to make this training camp ahead of Saturday's season opener versus UTEP.

NORMAN — With the release of Oklahoma’s depth chart this week ahead of Saturday’s season opener against UTEP, lots of questions came up — and not just a few about the defensive backs.

So Brent Venables stepped to the podium Tuesday for his first weekly press conference as the Sooners’ head coach and answered what questions he could.

The coaching staff had some hard decisions to make.

“Yeah, that's our job as coaches,” Venables said, “to try to identify within our scheme (and) find what a player can do what he can’t do to put him in position to be successful.”

To some, Jaden Davis being listed as a starter is a surprise, but it shouldn’t be. He had a good enough camp each of the last two seasons to start season openers against Missouri State (2020) and Western Carolina (2021), and ended up with six starts each of the last two years.

Venables said Davis showed more consistency this preseason than the competition.

“He’s really consistent,” Venables said. “You know, he's playing confidently, tackles well, and has been one of our most consistent players through fall camp.”

Still, it was widely presumed that junior D.J. Graham, who started 10 games last season after Woodi Washington got hurt, would win the job opposite Washington this year. That duo started the three games of the season together and were the Sooners’ best pairing.

Two newcomers who purportedly had a good training camp and were presumed to be at or near the top of the depth chart at their respective positions find themselves with a bit of a climb to find playing time.

C.J. Coldon (Wyoming) is listed co-third at one corner behind Davis and Kendall Dennis and even with Joshua Eaton, and Kani Walker (Louisville) is listed third at the other corner behind Washington and Graham.

At safety, the starters were expected to be Billy Bowman and Key Lawrence, and both are listed first, although Lawrence is listed as a co-starter with sixth-year senior Justin Broiles, who started previously at safety and nickel.

Also at safety, North Carolina transfer Trey Morrison and true freshman Robert Spears-Jennings are listed as co-starters along with sophomore Damond Harmon, who’s listed at both safety spots.

Broiles has moved around, Dennis has moved around, Bowman has moved around, and Morrison has moved around. There’s some versatility at play there, but there’s also putting players where they best fit — and maybe keeping them out of spots where they don’t.

“I’ve never been afraid of projecting a guy on a new spot,” Venables said. “You got to try to utilize your best football players and see if it's a natural fit.

“Some of the things from when we first got here in the spring to where we're at right now, you've kind of discovered again. Once we had the litmus test of actual playing and competing day in and day out, and then really defining the strengths and the weaknesses of the different players, trying to find a way to kind of mix it all together.”

Venables has preferred the split up his cornerback duties in the past between boundary (short side of the field, where bigger, more physical players reside) and field (wide side, with smaller, quicker players) depending on where the ball is placed among the hashmarks. But more recently, Venables’ preference has leaned toward employing a left corner and a right corner. That’s what he’ll stick with at OU this year, he said.

“We just look for football players,” Venables said. “ … I think first and foremost, you got to look for left and right. Your guys can play either side, you know, in both the field and the boundary, so that that would be ideal. So that you don't, you know — no pun intended — but you don't corner a guy into doing just certain things. If they can do what both the field and the boundary do, that's what you would ideally like and so we've crossed-trained all of them to do that.”