Oklahoma DE Ethan Downs is Embracing the New Culture Under Brent Venables

The Oklahoma native showed great potential during his freshman year, and he hopes the new coaching staff will be able to raise his game to another level in 2022.

NORMAN — A lot can change a year.

Last April, Ethan Downs was a fresh-faced early arrival just getting used to life at Oklahoma.

Rated a 4-star recruit by 247 Sports and a 3-star prospect by Rivals, the Weatherford, OK, product signed up to play for defensive coordinator Alex Grinch.

Flip the calendar to 2022, and Downs has a new head coach, new defensive coordinator, new position coach and is already embracing his role as a leader amongst OU’s defensive ends.

“I don't think there's a guy on this team that loves this team or Oklahoma, or his position more than Ethan Downs,” defensive ends coach Miguel Chavis said last week. “… Ethan Downs is the type of young man, practice is over and somebody maybe ripped off some tape and forgot to pick it up, which is a huge no-no for us here at Oklahoma. Nobody cleans up after Oklahoma. It's nobody else's job but ours.

“And Ethan Downs is, if anybody's gonna be the guy to go pick it up. It's gonna be Ethan Downs. And that’s who he is, on and off the field, he's risen to the challenge.”

Now with a year of college football under his belt, Downs has embraced the coaching change and is focused on attacking his second year in Norman.

And just three weeks into spring practice, Downs said he can already discern a few differences between the last coaching staff and the new defensive coaches.

“I would say the coaches last year, great coaches, phenomenal, but it was very win-based,” Downs said on Monday. “We grew together based on the ups and downs. But with this team, the coaches bring in such a character culture and they say character comes first, all the winning comes after. And that's different.

“… It's all about team, all about family.”

Last year, Downs logged 14 tackles, 0.5 quarterback sacks and a forced fumble, flashing great potential in his true freshman season. All of that came as Downs was just trying to adjust to college football, and he said he learned a lot about how to approach the game.

“The biggest transition (from high school) I would say was learning how to communicate because when you get to the college level,” Downs said. “You're getting chewed out, you've got to understand what's being said and not how it's coming off. There's a lot of life lessons that I'm being able to apply from football to every day life not only in the classroom but whatever else I take it.”

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As Isaiah Thomas, Perrion Winfrey and Nik Bonitto move onto the NFL, there will be even more opportunities for Downs to apply the lessons he learned in Year 1 to contribute in 2022. 

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And he views the new coaching staff as a blessing as well, as Brent Venables and Chavis demand a high attention to detail in an effort to improve everyone’s level of play. 

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“I would say anybody that really wants to be successful, they would be thankful for these coaches because that’s what they do and they have such a high standard,” Downs said. “… These coaches are all about grit, heart, all about putting your mind to it. 

“Coach Venables just said today you can’t speak yourself into being a great football player. Whether that’s trash talk or whatever, you can’t speak yourself into it. You have to perform. You have to work at it.”

Venables takes a hands-on approach to ensuring the entire defense improves, which is something that Downs said shouldn’t be a big shock. The new OU head coach is the same exact person he projects to the outside, Downs said, and he brings a high level of energy to the table every day.

“Love him. He's a brilliant man,” Downs said of Venables. “Out on the field, he can see it all. He stands out there when we're running through plays and he's pointing at D-linemen, safeties, everybody out on the field calling them out.

“To even watch film with him — that's the kind of coach he is, he welcomes you to come in and watch film, really just working on the finite details.”

The higher attention to detail should be a great boost to Downs, who has already impressed throughout his short OU career.

Now under the guidance of Chavis and Venables, the Oklahoma native is primed for a much larger role as a sophomore along the defensive front. 

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