The 2023 college football season was a season of redemption for the Oklahoma Sooners. After going 6-7 the year before, the Sooners finished 10-3 this season.
A big part of that was the improvement made by several key players, including two of their best. So, much so that ESPN listed two Sooners on their top 100 college football players list for the 2023 season: [autotag]Dillon Gabriel[/autotag] and [autotag]Danny Stutsman[/autotag].
Prior to the season, Gabriel was No. 60 on ESPN’s list but finished 2023 at No. 28.
Gabriel has already moved on to Oregon, but he cemented his place as an Oklahoma legend when he became the first OU QB with at least 250 passing yards and 100 rushing yards against Texas, driving the Sooners 75 yards in 1:02 and throwing a 3-yard TD pass to Nic Anderson with 15 seconds left in a 34-30 win. He passed for 3,660 yards, 30 TDs and 6 INTs and ran for 373 yards and 12 touchdowns. — ESPN’s Staff
Stutsman was No. 52 in the preseason, but finished at No. 89.
Stutsman, the Sooners’ leader on defense, led OU in tackles for the second straight year, with 104 total stops, adding 3 sacks, an interception and 2 forced fumbles despite missing half of the Kansas game and all of the Oklahoma State game, both OU losses. He was named a third-team AP All-American and is bypassing the NFL draft and returning to Oklahoma next season, big news for the Sooners. – ESPN’s Staff
That ranking for Stutsman is way too low in my opinion. Also not having [autotag]Billy Bowman[/autotag] on the list is a shame. Several writers for ESPN broke down the top 100 players list, and David Hale believed Stutsman was underrated.
There are a bunch of guys in the bottom half of our list whom I’d have higher, but let me make the case for Oklahoma’s Danny Stutsman. He played in 12 games, had 104 tackles (16 for a loss), two forced fumbles and a pick-six. Moreover, he was the heart, soul and personality of the Sooners’ D, a Brent Venables archetype that, frankly, Oklahoma had too few of. Besides, if you’re being compared to Brian Bosworth, you’re a top-50 player with a bright future either in the NFL or running a small sheriff’s department in a Dr. Pepper-obsessed town outside Tulsa.
He’s right. Stutsman was snubbed as a finalist for the Butkus Award all because of an injury he suffered, and he wasn’t the same the latter half of the season. That still shouldn’t take away from how dominant he was for much of the season.
It also was clear in the second half against the [autotag]Kansas Jayhawks[/autotag] and the full game against the [autotag]Oklahoma State Cowboys[/autotag], the defense was not the same with him not on the field.
It’s probably not a coincidence they lost both of those games with him out although you could argue the defense wasn’t exactly the issue.
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