How Brent Venables Found Oklahoma's Next Great Quarterback

With holes at QB from the 2020 and 2022 classes, Venables leaned on new OC Jeff Lebby, who had recruited Nick Evers at Ole Miss.

NORMAN — Lincoln Riley’s plan was working fine. Until it wasn’t.

Signing the top quarterback in the country in 2019 and 2021, and getting a verbal commitment from one of the top QB prospects in 2023 seemed like a pretty solid idea.

Don’t load up all at once on too many quarterbacks. Get the best guy in the country that fits your offense, space them out so everybody gets to study for a year and then start for two years and then heads off to the NFL — flawless.

But when Riley left for USC, Spencer Rattler hit the transfer portal and Malachi Nelson decommitted and pledged to Riley and the Trojans, Riley’s grand scheme suddenly folded like a cheap tent.

Worst of all, there were no scholarship quarterbacks left from the 2020 class and none coming in for 2022.

The best Oklahoma could hope for coming out of all that chaos was for 2021 freshman Caleb Williams to come back from limbo with an OU jersey on, and for the Sooners to land a QB in the 2022 class.

Sooner Nation’s fingers are still crossed on that first one.

But the second one is in the bag.

Nick Evers, a 4-star quarterback from Flower Mound, TX, signed with the Sooners on Wednesday, and OU coaches couldn’t be happier.

“The total package,” new coach Brent Venables called Evers on Wednesday.

The 6-foot-3, 187-pound Evers was recruited by new OU offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Jeff Lebby when Lebby was still coaching at Ole Miss. Evers had been committed to Florida, but when the Gators fired head coach Dan Mullen and his staff, Evers decommitted and opened his recruiting.

He certainly hadn’t forgotten Lebby, even though Lebby had moved on to Oklahoma. And what high school quarterback over the last five years hasn’t been at least a little intrigued by the Sooners’ growing QB heritage?

On signing day, Lebby told Sooner Sports TV that offering Evers to come to OU as the Sooners’ 2022 quarterback was an easy decision.

“I’ve had a relationship with Nick for a while now,” Lebby said. “Offered him back in March at the at the last place, and was able to get here, obviously. You know, a huge need for us was signing a QB in this class with the situation where we're at roster-wise. So I love Nick. I do. I think he fits us in a great way.”

Coming from the defensive coordinator post at Clemson, Venables said he had to rely on Lebby’s recommendations.

“Yeah,” Venables said, “I obviously leaned on him from, ‘Alright, who is the guy and why is he the guy?’ ”

Venables said it was important to “find the right kind of guy,” and that meant someone who was mature (OU might need a starter next year if Williams hits the transfer portal), someone who is “level-headed” knowing he would have be patient to either wait behind Williams or embrace his own evolution as the starter, and, of course, someone who is a talented quarterback.

“There's a there's a natural maturation that's going to take place, whether it be knowledge, maturity, decision making, physicality, skill, all those things are developed,” Venables said. “And so finding the right guy that fit there too, not just a talented player that could come in and help us be a quality player at that position. I think looking for the totality, you know, being the total package. And man did he (Lebby) find one.”

Rivals says Evers is the No. 4 dual-threat quarterback prospect in the nation, while ESPN ranks him as the No. 5 overall pocket passer. On3 rates him No. 6 among all high school QBs, and 247 Sports has him ranked No. 8.

Evers participated in the 2021 Elite 11 Finals and put up big stats at Flower Mound High: almost 5,000 yards passing with 44 touchdown passes and 18 touchdown runs in his junior and senior seasons. He also rushed for 648 yards as a senior.

Venables seems most impressed by Evers’ family stock.

“They're amazing people,” Venables said.

“Immediately after visiting with him and his family, just tremendous humility. Incredibly talented, but tremendous, tremendous humility, character, education. His dad's a Harvard grad — a recent Harvard grad — but the real brains of the operation is momma, Miss Monica. Just a wonderful family.

“He has tremendous discipline. He's a natural leader. He's connected from coast to coast. Kids love him. Easy to follow. And just a great athlete. He's just scratching the surface. He's got length, he's got speed. He's got arm talent. Very accurate player, and everything’s still sitting in front of him.”

As for the even-year holes in the roster, Venables is looking at it from a fresh perspective.

“I really don't know how we got to that point,” he said. “I don’t know whether it's Chandler Morris was here and him leaving kind of helped create a void as well, and certainly the quarterback that went to South Carolina did as well. So I thought that Jeff and the staff did a great job at identifying not only a very talented one, but a great one when it comes to the total package.”

“The quarterback that went to South Carolina,” of course, is Rattler, who beat out Tanner Mordecai and Morris in 2020, then this season lost his starting job at OU to Williams as Mordecai and Morris transferred and became starters at SMU and TCU, respectively.

What’s become starkly clear at Oklahoma is that talented quarterbacks come and go. And although everyone wants Williams to stay, the Sooner coaching staff thinks they’ll be just fine if he doesn’t.

That’s how much they like Evers.

“This is a guy that's incredibly competitive,” Lebby said. “He's really really athletic. He's got really good arm talent (and is) gonna continue to refine that. And he loves ball. That's that's the thing, to me, that stood out as much as anything. It's just the way he presented himself when he talked about, you know, how he's wired and how he loves playing football.

“So you know, that's what we got to have at the position. We got to have a guy that's ready to lead and be the face of the program, a guy that's willing to come in and set the standard of how we're going to operate as a unit, as a team. And Nick's got all those attributes — and man, I'm fired up about getting the chance to coach him.”