Five Best Defensive Backs in Sooner Football History
By Chip Rouse
Derrick Strait, Cornerback, 2000-03
Derrick Strait’s first season at Oklahoma in 2000 was one he will never forget. The Sooners’ won their seventh national championship that season, and the native of Austin, Texas (home of the Texas Longhorns), played a contributing role in that BCS Championship win as well as 12 others that season.
Strait played in every Oklahoma game over four seasons. He was the Big 12 Defensive Newcomer of the Year his freshman year in 2000, and by the time he was a senior, in 2003, he was voted Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year by the Associated Press.
Strait’s career overlapped that of All-American safety Roy Williams at Oklahoma in two seasons (2000 and 2001), and Strait duplicated what Williams did in 2001, winning both the Jim Thorpe Award and the Bronko Nagurski Trophy as the country’s best defensive back and overall best defensive player, respectively, two seasons later, in 2003.
His senior season, in 2003, Strait also earned consensus All-America honors and First Team All-Big 12. In a 65-13 victory over Texas that year in the annual rivalry showdown at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Strait turned in a career performance with a season-high 11 tackles, a 30-yard return of an interception, two fumble recoveries and three pass breakups.
When Strait’s four-year career at Oklahoma ended, he had set school records for total starts (53), career interception return yards (397) and passes defended (53).
Strait was a third-round pick of the New York Jets in the 2004 NFL Draft. He played three seasons in the NFL and a couple more in the Canadian Football League before retiring from professional football.