With his job on the line, Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables put the Sooners' defense in his own hands for 2025. A former successful defensive coordinator, Venables took over defensive play-calling duties for 2025 after Zac Alley left for West Virginia after just one season at OU.
The Sooners were actually pretty solid defensively in 2024 despite a 6-7 record. OU's offense was just atrocious. Had the offense even been average, the Sooners could have been eyeing a College Football Playoff spot last season.
Nonetheless, there's always room for improvement, and although moves have been made, there's no guarantee the offense will be better in 2025.
What needs to improve for Sooners under Brent Venables
Passing yards allowed
The Sooners ranked inside the top 50 for passing yards allowed last season at No. 43 while giving up 203.2 passing yards a game. That's respectable, but also probably looks better since OU's opponents were draining the clock by the end of most games so the ball wasn't going in the air as often.
This season, almost every SEC team has a new guy at quarterback, including the Sooners. That means this stat should improve based on competition, but also has to for OU to have a chance against the likes of LSU and whoever else emerges with a potent passing attack.
If the Sooners boost their passing defense inside the top 25, then they should be able to be in every game in 2025.
Red zone defense
This was a stat outside of the top 50 as the Sooners let opponents score about 82% of the time once they reached the red zone last season. The worst part of that is that 58% of the scores were touchdowns instead of field goals.
With a solid defense and hopefully much-improved offense in 2025, the Sooners should be in a lot more close games, so field goals compared to touchdowns could be the difference in the end.
Danny Stutsman's total tackles
This isn't a team stat, but Danny Stutsman's team-leading 109 tackles last season is a glaring void Venables has to replace. Stutsman had been the glue for OU's defense the past three years, but now he's in New Orleans.
Last season, the next leading tackler behind Stutsman was safety Robert Spears-Jennings with 66. Based on Stutsman's average, that's almost five games worth of tackles less than what Stutsman tallied.
OU's defense was great as a unit last season and return a multitude of key pieces, but someone will have to emerge as the leader of the defense and fill Stutsman's void, even if it takes more than one, in order to take a step forward instead of back.
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