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Two Oklahoma Players Land on Watch List for College Football's Top Defender

Sooners seniors Billy Bowman and Danny Stutsman are coming off a great 2023 season and are already making waves in 2024.

John E. Hoover

Oklahoma safety Billy Bowman
Oklahoma safety Billy Bowman / John E. Hoover / Sooners on SI
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Two Sooners are among 75 college football standouts to land a spot on the preseason watch list for the Bronko Nagurski Trophy, which goes to the nation’s top defensive player.

Linebacker Danny Stutsman and safety Billy Bowman made the watch list this year.

This year’s watch list includes last year’s winner, Notre Dame defensive back Xavier Watts — one of just two players in the country last year with more interceptions (7) than Bowman (6).

Bowman returned three of his picks for touchdowns, however, leading all of college football in that category, as well as in return yardage (238) — both school records.

The 5-foot-10, 200-pound senior from Denton, TX, has started 29 of his 35 games at OU, including all 13 last season, when he made a career-high 63 tackles, three tackles for loss and four passes defensed.

Bowman received first-team All-America honors last year and also landed a spot on this year's preseason All-SEC first team.

According to Pro Football Focus, Bowman posted a 54.1 overall defensive grade as a true freshman in 2021, a 73.3 as a junior and a 68.2 last year. His 2022 coverage grade of 82.3 ranked 39th among Power 5 defensive backs. He played 781 total snaps last year, per PFF, which ranked second on the defense behind cornerback Woodi Washington’s 851.

Stutsman, a 6-2, 241-pound senior from Windermere, FL, led the Sooners in tackles and was among the national leaders each of the last two seasons (125 and 104, respectively). With 267 career stops in his 35 games (25 starts), he’s on the verge of cracking the school’s all-time top 10. He also has 28.0 TFLs with three career interceptions, four forced fumbles, one fumble recovery, eight passes defensed and seven quarterback sacks.

Stutsman received second-team All-America honors and first-team All-Big 12 last year. He also landed on the preseason All-SEC first team this year.

Stutsman played 722 snaps last year and his overall defensive grade of 71.8 from PFF ranked 29th among Power 5 linebackers nationally.

The inaugural Nagurski Trophy was awarded in 1993, but the Sooners have a strong history, with safety Roy Williams landing OU’s first in 2001 and cornerback Derrick Strait receiving the award in 2003.

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John E. Hoover

JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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