As he prepares for the 2022 NFL draft, Delarrin Turner-Yell describes what it was like starting as a sophomore and how it helped shape his journey to the NFL.
Coming off of an 11-2 season, the Oklahoma Sooners have a ton of talent heading to the next level. Safety Delarrin Turner-Yell is one of five starters the Sooners are losing from that 2021 defense. As a three-year starter, his experience and understanding of the game became an invaluable asset for Oklahoma.
At the University of Oklahoma, Turner-Yell started 32 games, recording 190 total tackles and four interceptions, including three in 2021, a season where he missed three games due to a hamstring injury.
It was a career that may not have finished how he or his teammates would have liked, but he walked away with three Big 12 championships and went 2-0 in bowl game wins over Florida and Oregon. An injury in the build-up to the 2019 Peach Bowl forced him to sit out the College Football Playoff Semifinal.
In part one of our interview with Delarrin Turner-Yell, he describes how his time with the Oklahoma Sooners helped shape him for his future in the NFL.
“I feel like the experience of starting at the University of Oklahoma for three straight years really helped me grow as a man because it also helped me to be able to handle harsh situations and be able to get over the hump,” Turner-Yell said.
Every player experiences the harsh realities of stepping up in competition. Whether it’s from the high school level to college, the B-team to the A-team, or from college to the NFL. Along the way, there’s a realization of the opportunity in front of you.
For Delarrin Turner-Yell, that realization came as he got his first opportunity to start. It wasn’t easy, and he described going through growing pains but knowing this was his chance to shine helped him push through, learn from his mistakes and work to get better. “I couldn’t figure things out like that. The first season that I started was my sophomore season. I was still fairly young in the program,” he said. “But ultimately, whenever I was given a chance to be able to start and be able to play, I had to be able to understand how important it was. How big of an opportunity it was. I wanted to be able to make the most out of it.”
And it was former defensive coordinator Alex Grinch that helped Delarrin Turner-Yell understand what it meant to be playing for the University of Oklahoma. “Coach Grinch just sat me down, and he talked to me about the importance of being able to play at the University of Oklahoma. How important it was, how big of a deal it was, and he really just allowed me to look at it from a different lens.”
The journey of a first-year starter can be up and down. Not every practice will be a clean one, but even the bad practices help players learn and grow to become better players as they go.
And it was watching film, and learning the importance of watching film that pushed him over the hump in his understanding and processing of the game. The former Sooners safety described, “And there were times where we’ll be at practice, everyone has a bad practice, and there’ll be days where it’s, ‘okay, well, how can I get over the hump.’ I just started to learn the importance of watching film. Because once you watch film on the things that you mess up on, you can easily tell what I could have done to be a step faster. Just going back and seeing how I can correct the things that I messed up on. And the biggest way to do that is to watch film. To watch yourself mess up. To see what steps you could have taken. Where should your eyes have been in order for you to be able to make that play?”
Starting as a sophomore wasn’t the easiest task, but for Delarrin Turner-Yell, it was the proving ground that helped him grow the most during his time at the University of Oklahoma.
“I feel like it helped me grow as a man because, you know, in life, you tend to go through things that you really don’t know what the outcome is going to be or how are you going to overcome it. But going through that helped me be able to overcome things like that in life.”
After a successful career that culminated in second-team All-Big 12 and All-Big 12 academic selections, Delarrin Turner-Yell can take what he learned at the University of Oklahoma and apply it to his journey to take the next step in his playing career.
The next step in his journey is the NFL scouting combine, which begins Mar. 1 in Indianapolis.
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