COLUMN: Freshmen Populate Oklahoma Depth Chart Because 'We've Recruited at a High Level'

Brent Venables and the Sooners' coaching staff has compiled three straight top-eight classes, and this year's group is on the verge of making big contributions.

Eddy Pierre-Louis / John E. Hoover / Sooners on SI

NORMAN — We won’t truly know how good Oklahoma’s 2024 freshman class is for a while.

We’ll have some idea when the No. 16-ranked Sooners host Temple on Friday night. We’ll obviously know more when they play No. 3 Texas in October. And certainly we’ll have a clearer picture when bowl season rolls around.

But for a comprehensive assessment, we’ll need to wait a couple of years to understand the full breadth of the class that OU calls “24K.”

Regardless, it’s Monday of game week (aka “Tuesday” to coach Brent Venables) and we need ask: how good are these OU freshmen?

The Sooners revealed their Week 1 depth chart on Sunday, and a total of five true freshmen are in what is commonly referred two as the offensive and defensive “two-deep,” meaning the starter and his top backup.

“Yeah, that’s a lot,” Venables said, “but we’ve recruited at a high level.”

Five might sound like a lot, but actually tracks with Venables’ 2023 freshman class (four) and his 2022 rookies (six).

To put it plainly, that ’22 group needed all the help it could get, so Venables’ inaugural team counted on big contributions from freshmen more than the last two.

In the football parlance of “depth chart,” meaning first-string, second-string, third-string and/or fourth-string, this year’s roster includes 16 freshmen on the depth chart for Temple.

The 2023 team had 15 freshmen listed on the depth chart for the opener against Arkansas State, and the 2022 squad listed 13 on the opening day depth chart for UTEP.

And a quick examination of the evolution of those 2022 and 2023 depth charts reveals that they didn’t really change very much over the course of the season. Despite occasional injuries or demotions, OU last year went from four freshmen in the two-deep in the opener to five against Texas and five for the road trip to BYU. The year before, the six rookies in the two-deep remained static from the opener to the Texas game to the finale at Texas Tech. 

And in both years, the total number of freshmen on the overall depth chart fluctuated between 15 and 14 in 2023 and between 13 and 14 in 2022.

Venables said Monday he didn’t know if five in the two deep and 15 in the depth chart was unusual or normal.

“I think in this day and age, that’s probably appropriate,” Venables said. “You don’t have the stability in the locker room that you once did, but I think that said, there’s (three) on defense in the two-deep and (two) on offense in the two-deep, and I think that’s more normal than not.” 

According to 247 Sports, Oklahoma’s recruiting classes ranked No. 8 nationally in 2022, No. 5 nationally in 2023 and No. 8 nationally in 2024. Venables and his staff have assembled three consecutive top-eight classes  for the first time in the era of online recruiting rankings. 

Venables said the mid-term addition of 20 freshmen naturally gave them a head start. Enrolling early isn’t for everyone, but more and more high school football players are doing it virtually ever year, it seems, and Venables and his staff try to identify characteristics in their prospects that would hint at having the maturity to make that transition smoothly. 

“If they’re immature about — (if) they’re not a focus-driven young person, they’re going to be miserable because they’re going to have more structure (in college) than they’ve had probably in their whole life that first semester, and there’s nothing easy about it,” Venables said. “It’s just endless, relentless work, and everything’s uncomfortable. And that’s when you’re doing it the right way, it’s that way for them.”

The freshmen in the two-deep on offense are backup quarterback Michael Hawkins and backup offensive guard Eddy Pierre-Louis, while the freshmen on defense are starting defensive tackle Jayden Jackson and backup strong safeties Jaydan Hardy and Reggie Powers. Only Pierre-Louis wasn’t here in the spring.

Of the 16 total on the depth chart, only Pierre-Louis, running back Taylor Tatum and wide receiver K.J. Daniels arrived in the summer.

That experience allowed a few of them to push ahead of their older, more experienced teammates.

“Sometimes when you have a freshman in there, it doesn't have anything to do with anybody else that isn't doing something,” Venables said. “It's really, ‘Man, they've really done a great job.’ ”

Venables expounded on a handful of first-years and their experiences so far that have led them to their place on the depth chart ahead of Friday’s opener.

“(Jayden Jackson has) got a great deal of maturity,” Venables said. “He is mature beyond his years, very focused, driven, ambitious. He shows up, puts the work in every single day. He’s a model of consistency with his habits, his mindset. He has great mental and physical toughness. He brought with him a skillset that was very refined. … He shows up and makes everybody around him better. He’s a really good teammate. He’s incredibly coachable. He’s really a coach’s dream. 

“I’ve been bragging on Eli Bowen — he might be third on that depth chart. But again, as I've said, it's not premium information to sell. … I’ve said that Eli Bowen's gonna be a really good player. He has been one, but just nothing overwhelms him from being a young guy. And not the structure, not the demand, the load that's required of him academically, the weight room, the nutrition, competing, it's nonstop, the demands of these guys.

“A guy like Eddy Pierre-Louis, if he had been here in January, he might be an ‘OR’ guy — on the top end of that OR. He might have been the first guy on that, I don't know. There's no really way to tell, but what he has been able to show in a very short amount of time is pretty impressive.” 

“I’m not surprised,” Venables said, “and I’m hopeful that maybe you’ll even see a few more as we move on down the road.”