Column: How Last Year's Goal Line Stand vs. Texas Set the Stage for What Oklahoma's Defense Has Become

The Sooners got an important stop to beat the Longhorns, and Brent Venables has used that momentum to finally grow the OU defense into a formidable unit.

Oklahoma safety Billy Bowman (2) and linebackers Kip Lewis (10), Jaren Kanak (7) and Dasan McCullough (1) stop Texas running back Jonathon Brooks (24) on the goal line in 2023. / BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK

NORMAN — First and goal at the 1-yard line.

Who wouldn’t want to be in that situation?

Well, a defense might not appreciate it all that much.

But last year in the Cotton Bowl, against hated rival Texas, Brent Venables’ Oklahoma defense embraced the heat, thrived in it, and grew from it.

In OU’s 34-30 comeback victory over the playoff-bound Longhorns, Dillon Gabriel’s last-second touchdown pass to Nic Anderson and Danny Stutsman’s pregame speech about what Oklahoma fears and what Texas fears got most of the attention.

But the Sooners’ stop on the other end of the Cotton Bowl field at the start of the fourth quarter was every bit as big.

Bigger, if you believe what Venables said about building a defense from that moment, about it being an event he can literally hang his hat on as a football coach trying to establish a culture and change a program’s identity.

“Let's face it, for a decade we were not very good on defense here,” Venables said Tuesday during his weekly press conference, “and flipping the script is showing them why you should believe, why you should buy in, what it takes to — if you're going to be about something as a competitor and as a defensive player, that is what it's about, when your back's against the wall.”

Going back to Dallas this weekend to face the No. 1-ranked Horns on Saturday, Venables’ defense has been transformed. These Sooners are clearly not a finished product, but the identity of the program now has Venables’ defensive fingerprints all over it — and much of what Sooner Nation cheers about on Saturday will have begun with that fourth-quarter goal line stand in last year’s game.

“It starts with belief,” Venables said. “It starts with toughness. It starts with everybody doing your job.”

Oklahoma led 27-20 as the third quarter wound down. The ‘Horns started their possession with great field position after Gabriel’s fourth-down pass to Drake Stoops fell incomplete at the Texas 48. 

Jonathon Brooks ran for 3 yards, then broke one up the middle for 15 on the final play of the period.

When the fourth quarter began, Texas had first down at the OU 34. A third-down throw from Quinn Ewers to Jordan Whittington popped free for 28 yards, however, before Jaren Kanak brought him down at the 1-yard line.

That’s where, midway through Year 2, Venables’ defense rose up and established itself.

Brooks got stuffed for no gain on first down as Kip Lewis sliced through the line and submarined him. 

Brooks took the second-down handoff off the right side, but the Texas o-line went nowhere as Lewis, Dasan McCullough, Billy Bowman and Kanak kept Brooks off the goal line.

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, sensing an advantage in his team’s offensive line and maybe needing to put his foot down about which team was going to finish strong and be more physical, called for another Brooks run up the middle, but he was tackled short again, this time for a 1-yard by Stutsman and McCullough.

Now, on fourth-and-2, Sarkisian figured he needed to do something different. So he had Ewers flip a quick throw to the left to speedy Xavier Worthy, but as Worthy turned upfield, he was sandwiched between Bowman and Woodi Washington, who strained to get Worthy to the ground before he could reach the ball across.

“I just remember, we were in kind of a mixed call,” Bowman said Monday night. “Didn’t necessarily know exactly what we were doing, so I had told Dasan to go ahead and blitz, I’ll take care of them out here. So right away, he motioned in. Wasn’t really expecting a pass, but he motioned in, and then screen pass just triggered.

“We practiced that situation literally the whole week. And so when they come alive, we’re prepared for it. And we have the game plan down and everything like that. But yes, once teams get down there, I think we have a pretty good sense of each other knowing that they won't get in.”

Oklahoma had turned back one of college football’s most dynamic offenses on four tries from the 1-yard line, and Venables knew right then that good days were ahead for his defense.

“What we say all the time, 'When our back is against the wall, they don't get in,’” Bowman said. “So we were just down there four plays in a row, four straight plays. That’s why we practiced those moments at practice. So when the game comes, we’re prepared, and so we were prepared, and we stood them up four straight times in a row.”

The next week against Central Florida, OU got two goal-line stops — one that was blown to bits by an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against Kanak, and one that came on a 2-point conversion in a game the Sooners won 31-29.

Later in the season, OU had another goal line stand against West Virginia.

"So we've looked at all those, the critical moments as you build your team throughout the year,” Venables said. “You watch in the out-of-season different defining moments and developing an identity and always believing when your back's against the wall.” 

So there should have been no surprise when the 2024 Sooners turned back an Auburn advance on the goal line two weeks ago at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

Auburn coach Hugh Freeze said he regretted not handing the football to his hard-charging running back, Jarquez Hunter, but the way Venables’ squad has embraced the goal line stand, would it have made any difference?

Venables said he hasn’t specifically spoken to the team or shown the players the four goal-line plays from Dallas last year — not in a “look-what-you-can-do,” pregame-hype setting, anyway.

Maybe that’ll happen later in the week. Maybe it’ll come up in practice, when Venables calls for the goal line defense.

“Those are always big plays in any game you're playing against anybody with a pulse,” he said. “ … And so any time you have some success doing that, you're always trying to say ‘A-ha!’ 

“A great opportunity to teach and learn. ‘Look man, it don't matter! Spot the ball! Put the ball on the 1!’ You know? And when you can be successful on defense, man, that's always something to build from, you know?

“We've had several of those the last couple years, and you build off of all of it.”