Why Oklahoma Named DT Jayden Jackson a Starter, and What Brent Venables Thinks About David Stone

The Sooners' freshmen defensive linemen were among 17 first-year players who showed up on Sunday night's initial depth chart for Friday's opener against Temple.

Oklahoma DL Jayden Jackson / John E. Hoover / Sooners On SI

Just like everyone thought, Oklahoma will have a true freshman starting at defensive tackle when the Sooners open against Temple on Friday night.

But — spoiler alert — it’s not the freshman that everyone expected.

Jayden Jackson, and not 5-star David Stone — they were high school teammates at IMG Academy — was named Sunday night a starter on the interior of the Sooners’ defensive front.

“Since Jayden got here, he's really shown a different level of maturity,” head coach Brent Venables said Sunday on the first of his weekly coaches shows. “He plays beyond his years. He shows up every day, just how he lives his life. He's a very — everything's pretty clean for him, you know, not messy. So he just he makes good decisions. He's got incredible discipline. And to me, everything starts with discipline.”

Stone, who hails from nearby Del City, was the Sooners’ first consensus 5-star defensive tackle recruit since Gerald McCoy in 2006. And don’t think that Stone won’t play this year. He’ll play plenty. His natural gifts are irrefutable, and Venables said he applies himself to make the most of those gifts.

“Nobody has worked harder on our whole football team than David Stone,” Venables said. “And I brag on him in front of the players — and he deserves that.” 

The 6-foot-2, 300-pound Jackson played two years at IMG after coming up in Indianapolis. As a senior in 2023, he was named IMG’s Defensive MVP.

That, clearly, was no fluke. He’s that good, and combines a unique maturity with rare football talents.

Oklahoma Depth Chart - Temple / OU Media Relations

“He knows what he wants,” Venables said. “He's willing to sacrifice things that don't help get him what he wants. And so he just lives a really disciplined lifestyle. And as you know, that is kind of a prerequisite in order to earn an opportunity to play at a consistent level. And so he's really there because he's worked for it. Really excited about what he could become.”

The 6-3, 294-pound Stone is listed behind Jackson and junior Gracen Halton as the defensive tackle, or 3-technique, while at nose tackle, TCU transfer Damonic Williams or returning starter Da’Jon Terry will be the starter.

Jackson and Stone are two of 17 true freshman who earned a spot on the depth chart — essentially a three-deep — for the Temple game. That's a testament to the quality of recruits the Sooner coaching staff brought in this year, and Stone is widely regarded as the prize of that class.

How good is Stone? Venables said he led the interior defensive line in quarterback sacks during his first preseason training camp.

“So he's just learning how to be an every-down player,” Venables said. “He didn't have as much of a foundation with his fundamentals and his block (recognition), and so he's a guy that relied on just being real explosive and talented and playing a little bit higher and things like that.”

Oklahoma defensive tackle David Stone / John E. Hoover / Sooners On SI

Venables said Stone has had the ideal mental approach for someone so young and yet so talented.

“He just comes every day with a crazy humble mindset,” Venables said. “He's up in our defensive staff room every single day watching tape, and … he's very humble, a really highly recruited guy, high in demand, and he's he's got the exact right mindset for what it takes to become a great player in the future. He's not full of himself. He's got great self-awareness. He knows what his limitations are and the areas that he has to improve, and then he works diligently and hard to get better. And so I really have a great appreciation for that.”

Meanwhile, Jackson has worked hard to improve in other areas — on the field and off, Venables said. His coach even compared him to some of the Sooners’ best defensive tackles of the past generation.

“He’s a great leader,” Venables said. “He's physical, he's really fundamentally sound. His his block recognition and how fast his hands go to the right places, his reaction — because the margin for error is the smallest in any spot on the defense. It's that defensive tackle. Because everything happens so fast. And if you step the wrong way, if your pads are just slightly too high, if your hands aren’t in the right spot, you know, and when you move a little bit here and there, things happen really fast. The gap exchange is really fast. And then there's a level of physicality that is very real. A lot of times you're taking on 600-plus pounds of strength and punch, and you can't lose ground. Matter of fact, you got to be able to knock people backwards and live on the other side of the line of scrimmage. You got to be able to dent people. And he's able to do that consistently.

“He's more like a young Dusty Dvoracek, as opposed to a young Tommie Harris,” Venables continued. “Most people probably didn't realize this, but Gerald McCoy redshirted when he got here as a true freshman because he wasn't technically sound, and he just — he stepped long and he’s swimming — and you can't do that … you get away with that in high school, but you'll get punched in the face quick and baptized quick if you're not fundamentally sound inside. 

“So that's really (Jackson’s) mindset. And then his fundamentals that he brought with him — and Coach (Todd) Bates has done a great job with him too. But Jayden shows up every day. He strains, he’s the same guy every day, he doesn't go up and down. He's just a model of consistency, everything that you want. So I'm really excited about him.”