Tag: Reggie Pearson

Oklahoma Sooners name captains for week 8 contest with UCF Knights

The Oklahoma Sooners captains for the Week 8 game vs. the UCF Knights has been set.

It’s finally almost “football time in Oklahoma” once again after their bye week. The Oklahoma Sooners take on their new [autotag]Big 12[/autotag] foe the [autotag]UCF Knights[/autotag] on Saturday at 11:00 a.m. CT.

On Monday night, the Sooners announced via social media the captains for this week’s contest. The captains are [autotag]Dillon Gabriel[/autotag], [autotag]Da’Jon Terry[/autotag], [autotag]Reggie Pearson[/autotag], [autotag]Shane Whitter[/autotag] and [autotag]Caleb Shaffer[/autotag]. Gabriel is fresh off a huge game in the Cotton Bowl and is also playing his former team, perhaps some gamesmanship from Brent Venables.

Pearson is a guy who started early in the year before getting injured. Since returning Pearson, has maintained a steady role in the safety rotation.

Terry is fresh off his best game of the season, where he was virtually unblockable and unmovable.

Shaffer being a captain is interesting because it might point to him winning the starting right guard job while [autotag]McKade Mettauer[/autotag] is out. He came in and played well, especially given the circumstances.

Whitter is someone who is mainly a special teams player for the Sooners. He’s someone people have always thought would be a transfer candidate. He’s committed to the program, to Venables and the standard he’s laid out since arriving in Norman. That’s a guy you want as a leader because it would have been easy to just up and leave.

All in all, it’s a good group of captains, and it’s good to have football back at the palace.

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Midseason positional review: How have the Oklahoma Sooners looked at the midway point?

How have each position group done so far for the Oklahoma Sooners at the midway point?

The Oklahoma Sooners have hit the midway point of the 2023 college football season. The Sooners are undefeated at 6-0 in year two under [autotag]Brent Venables[/autotag]. Venables is now 13-7

Offensively they’ve been pretty good. They rank No. 6 in total offense, No. 9 in 3rd down offense, No. 2 in 1st down offense, and No. 4 in scoring offense.

The defense has also been pretty good and shown vast improvement. They rank No. 50 in total defense, No. 12 in 3rd down defense, No. 31 in rush defense, and No. 2 in turnovers forced.

There is still much improvement that needs to be made for both units, but so far, they’ve made significant strides.

Prior to the season, I broke down each position group, so let’s go through and see how they are doing at this point and give them a midseason grade.

Brent Venables provides injury updates on several Oklahoma Sooners

With Oklahoma set to open Big 12 play, Brent Venables offered an injury update on several Sooners.

This offseason, the Oklahoma Sooners’ coaching staff highlighted their improved “competitive depth” from the 2022 season. That depth is being put to the test early in 2023, as injuries to several starters will force the Sooners to go deeper into the roster.

The most notable, at this point, is the knee injury suffered by starting cheetah Justin Harrington, who missed the Tulsa game. Though there’s no official timetable for his recovery, it’s not looking like he’ll be back anytime soon for the Oklahoma Sooners.

The Sooners turned to [autotag]Peyton Bowen[/autotag], [autotag]Kip Lewis[/autotag], and [autotag]Kendel Dolby[/autotag] at cheetah with Dasan McCullough out of action with his own injury. McCullough’s expected to be back for the Sooners this week when they travel to Cincinnati.

There are several other names to keep an eye on. [autotag]Savion Byrd[/autotag] left the Sooners win over Tulsa with an undisclosed injury. He was replaced by a combination of [autotag]Cayden Green[/autotag] and [autotag]Troy Everett[/autotag].

[autotag]Reggie Pearson[/autotag], [autotag]R Mason Thomas[/autotag], and [autotag]Jasiah Wagoner[/autotag] are dealing with ailments of their own. And like Byrd, Brent Venables is “hopeful” for those guys. Now does that mean they’ll be available this week? Time will tell.

Pearson and Thomas are significant members of the Sooners defensive depth chart. Wagoner had an offseason that impressed the coaches and those in attendance at practices.

Also notable, youngsters [autotag]Phil Picciotti[/autotag] and [autotag]Jayden Rowe[/autotag] will have season-ending surgeries.

Picciotti, a true freshman linebacker, hadn’t recorded a snap through three games. Coaches were impressed with the offseason the New Jersey native and IMG Academy talent put together, but he’ll redshirt for 2023 and continue to work toward being an impact player in 2024.

Jayden Rowe, the Tulsa native, will also be out for the remainder of the year. He was a four-star prospect in the 2022 recruiting class and has played 22 snaps for the Sooners across his first two seasons.

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Justin Harrington unavailable at cheetah for the Oklahoma Sooners vs. Tulsa

Though he made the trip with the team, starting cheetah linebacker Justin Harrington not expected to play against Tulsa.

The Oklahoma Sooners are out to build a defense that more resembles what Brent Venables put together at Clemson and Oklahoma. With a pair of strong performances against Arkansas State and SMU already under their belt, the Sooners hope to keep that momentum going against Tulsa before Big 12 play begins next Saturday against Cincinnati.

But as they prepared to play the Golden Hurricane in Tulsa, they’ll have to do so without starting cheetah backer [autotag]Justin Harrington[/autotag].

According to Eddie Radesovich of SoonerScoop.com and On3, the senior defender made the trip to Tulsa but isn’t suited out for today’s game.

Harrington, who is fifth on the team in snaps this season, is out of action with a sprained knee suffered in the win over SMU.

This season, Harrington’s played 91 snaps at cheetah and has generated six total tackles, an interception, and four pressures on the season.

The Sooners will likely turn to Indiana transfer[autotag] Dasan McCullough[/autotag], who will be making his first appearance since being injured in the win over Arkansas State. Oklahoma will also likely utilize [autotag]Reggie Pearson[/autotag] as well as blue-chip true freshmen [autotag]Peyton Bowen[/autotag] and [autotag]Samuel Omosigho[/autotag].

The Sooners need someone to step up and fortify that spot in Harrington’s absence, which could extend into Big 12 play.

After an offseason where the coaching staff highlighted the competitive depth, the Sooners should have a good answer to the cheetah question.

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Sooners safety Robert Spears-Jennings now healthy and ready to make an impact

Robert Spears-Jennings was one of many Sooners who battled injuries this offseason but now he’s healthy and ready to go.

The Oklahoma Sooners safety room is one of the deeper rooms on the entire team. It is full of experience with [autotag]Reggie Pearson[/autotag], [autotag]Billy Bowman[/autotag] and [autotag]Key Lawerence[/autotag].

It also has some very skilled younger players like [autotag]Peyton Bowen[/autotag] and [autotag]Robert Spears-Jennings[/autotag]. Spears-Jennings battled an injury this off-season but now is back and ready to make an impact on the field.

He told reporters it wasn’t too tough watching Week 1 waiting for his chance to play.

“I told my guys right before the game I’m going to be their biggest fan that game,” Spears-Jennings said. “Every time they made a play, I was the loudest one on the sideline and cheering those guys on.”

But now Spears-Jennings is back as he made his season debut against the SMU Mustangs. He finished with three tackles on the night.

Each one of the safeties brings a different element to the Sooners’ defense which is good to have. Spears-Jennings is someone who can make plays on the ball, but he’s arguably the hardest hitter of the group.

He’s someone who has no issue with laying the wood on someone and helping stop the run game as well.

Safeties coach Brandon Hall has a really good group and so far it has been the best group on the field for the Sooners defense in 2023.

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Key Lawrence among College Sports Wire’s top Big 12 performers from week 2

After a strong performance in the Sooners win over SMU, Oklahoma’s Key Lawrence was selected as College Sports Wire’s top Big 12 defensive back from week 2.

The Oklahoma Sooners are 2-0 on the season, led by a defense that’s allowing just 5.5 points per game and rank as a top-10 defense early on. The Sooners will face tougher competition as the season goes on, but the SMU Mustangs offense is a good one. Oklahoma held them to their lowest point total since the end of the 2017 season.

There were a number of key contributors to the strong defensive performance, including [autotag]Danny Stutsman[/autotag] and [autotag]Kip Lewis[/autotag] at linebacker. Another player who had a strong game was, safety [autotag]Key Lawrence[/autotag].

Lawrence was named one of College Sports Wire’s top Big 12 performers from the Sooners’ win in week 2.

It was actually the defense that helped lead the Sooners to a victory over SMU on Saturday. They held the Mustangs to just 11 points and that allowed a struggling offense to find their footing in the 4th quarterback. Lawrence was part of that unit that kept Preston Stone from lighting up the scoreboard. – Conn, College Sports Wire

Lawrence came up with a heads up play after Jaylan Knighton broke free for a big run in the fourth quarter. As the Mustangs were looking to cut into the Sooners 14-3 lead on Saturday, Knighton broke free down the left side and Key Lawrence tracked him down. Lawrence swatted the ball out, which Danny Stutsman recovered after Woodi Washington kept it from going out of bounds.

The Sooners have a deep safety group in 2023. The additions of [autotag]Peyton Bowen[/autotag] and [autotag]Reggie Pearson[/autotag] to [autotag]Billy Bowman[/autotag] and Key Lawrence have given them four players who can make plays. But all offseason as the media spoke of Bowen, Pearson, and Bowman all offseason, defensive coordinator [autotag]Ted Roof[/autotag] quickly reminded everyone of Key Lawrence.

On Saturday, Key Lawrence looked like the player who was making plays in the Iowa State game at the end of the 2021 season. He’s been a big part of Oklahoma’s defensive success to start the 2023 season.

His energy and aggressiveness give the Sooners another player who can impact the game in multiple ways. To be a good or even great defense, the Sooners need difference-makers at every level of the defense. At safety, the Sooners are chock-full of playmakers, and Lawrence stood out on Saturday in the win over SMU.

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Once the forgotten man, Key Lawrence shows he belongs on the field

While the talk with the safeties has been about Billy Bowman, Peyton Bowen and Reggie Pearson, Key Lawrence continues to show he belongs in that conversation.

This offseason the talk about the safety position has been focused around three guys, [autotag]Billy Bowman[/autotag], [autotag]Peyton Bowen[/autotag], and [autotag]Reggie Pearson[/autotag].

The forgotten man of the group was [autotag]Key Lawrence[/autotag]. Through two games, Lawrence has shown he belongs on the field.

In Saturday’s game, with about eight minutes to go in the 3rd quarter, the Sooners led 14-3. SMU Mustangs running back [autotag]Jaylan Knighton[/autotag] busted through a hole for a 23-yard run.

Lawrence was the final defender, and shortly after Knighton switched the ball to his outer hand, Lawrence punched at it, knocking it free. [autotag]Woodi Washington[/autotag] stopped it from going out of bounds, and [autotag]Danny Stutsman[/autotag] jumped on top of it.

Lawrence told reporters Monday that they work on that in practice.

“On Tuesdays, we do the stiff arm drill and I saw this man literally switch the ball in his hands, and the first thing I thought was to attack,” Lawrence said.

That hustle and big play will keep Lawrence on the field and become a trusted member of the defense. Lawrence said that mindset is also something the coaches stress at practice.

“Coach engraved it in us that we need to hustle to the ball, strain every day,” Lawrence said. “If they bust something like that, we all need to be there.”

It’s clear that the team is doing a better job rallying to the ball. They’re not giving up on plays. And after they give up a play, they’re responding with the right attitude. Lawrence’s strip is evidence of the change in mindset for the 2023 Oklahoma Sooners. The Sooners are getting a number of players around the ball, resulting in very few missed tackles.

Lawrence’s performance on Saturday is just one of many examples of the growth of the defense in 2023.

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‘We are a fast, complete, suffocating defense’: Reggie Pearson notices a change in Oklahoma’s defense

While he wasn’t at Oklahoma a year ago, Reggie Pearson said he notices a big change compared to a season ago.

It was early in the game against the Arkansas State Red Wolves. Red Wolves quarterback [autotag]J.T. Strout[/autotag] scrambled to the right and just after he crossed the out-of-bounds line, Oklahoma Sooners safety [autotag]Reggie Pearson[/autotag] laid a huge hit.

That hit drew a 15-yard penalty on the Sooners. But what happened the very next play was something we aren’t typically used to seeing from an [autotag]Oklahoma defense[/autotag].

We’ve seen it countless times. A bad penalty eventually leads to a touchdown as the defense is never able to recover. But not on Saturday. Instead the very next play Pearson blew up a running play for a one-yard loss. Two plays later, the Red Wolves were punting.

While Pearson wasn’t at Oklahoma a year ago, he told reporters there is a difference between this year’s unit and last year’s unit.

“We are a fast, complete, suffocating defense,” Pearson said. “I feel like that’s what has changed from last year from what I’ve seen from OU’s defense to now. Just being on every single play and rallying to everything and making sure we get guys down. Honing in on our communication. That’s a big thing too. We’re super physical. We’re faster than a lot of people thought we were.”

That physicality and speed were on display early and often. While it was against a lower-level opponent, you could still tell it just looked different than a year ago. Will the results be different than a year ago is the main question.

One Oklahoma has a chance to further answer come this Saturday at 5 p.m. CT.

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‘Not as good as I know it can be’: Billy Bowman looks to take his game to ‘another level’

Billy Bowman is one of the few players on this defense that has flashed All-American type of potential. It’s now time for him to put it all together.

It’s been an up-and-down career so far for former four-star safety [autotag]Billy Bowman[/autotag]. During his freshman year, he was thrown to the wolves being asked to play multiple positions. There were flashes, but he suffered from being a man without a home.

Bowman’s sophomore year was much better. He finished with 60 tackles and three interceptions and really looked solid in the secondary playing safety full-time. But it wasn’t a perfect season for Bowman.

He told reporters after looking back at the film, there are a few things he wants to get better at.

“When I go back and look at it, it’s not as good as I know it can be or I want it to be or my coaches want it to be,” Bowman said. “So, everything from stance to getting in my pedal faster to tackling to tracking angles to football intelligence, knowing where I’ve got to be to knowing what the other person is doing. Everything for me needs to and will go up to another level.”

That’s the level that has a lot of Sooner fans excited. They know if he takes his game to another level, Bowman could be an All-American type of player.

It’s not just Bowman at the safety position that has fans excited. Bowman acknowledged he feels they have one of the deeper positions on the team.

“I would say so,” Bowman said. “A lot of guys like Daeh (McCullough) coming in, Peyton (Bowen) coming in, Reggie (Pearson) coming in, Key Lawrence still being here, myself, Robert Spears-Jennings, so we’ve got a lot of depth in the safety room.”

There is no doubt the ceiling for that safety room is very high. And so are the expectations. The hope is now they can reach that ceiling and become a dominant group. That’s something the [autotag]Oklahoma Sooners[/autotag] haven’t seen in more than a decade.

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Reggie Pearson to bring the boom to the Oklahoma safety room

Reggie Pearson should play a huge role for Oklahoma this year and help set the tone for Oklahoma defenses to come.

It was less than a year ago when then [autotag]Texas Tech Red Raider[/autotag] [autotag]Reggie Pearson[/autotag] knocked out [autotag]Dillon Gabriel[/autotag] for a play after a big hit. Now, he’s on the [autotag]Oklahoma Sooners[/autotag] sideline, where they hope those big hits keep coming.

The secondary is something that needed a major makeover. That’s exactly what it got adding Pearson and true freshman [autotag]Peyton Bowen[/autotag]. While Pearson is an older player, he told reporters he had to get comfortable at his new stop.

“When you come in as a transfer, you feel that kind of sense of being a guy and coming in like, ‘they see me as this guy, I’m this that or whatever,” Pearson said. “What (Brent Venables) kind of holds you to even higher standards where you feel like you’ve come in as a freshman. I feel like that’s the best thing that I’ve had to counter with when I got here because I’m always hungry, humble but just playing for so long you get that kind of sense of comfort within.”

That comfort is what has helped Pearson become the player he is today. He’s also someone coaches have raved about. Practice and scrimmage reports have supported the hard hitter and tone-setter he is for this team.

It’s why they brought him to this team, and hope he can add to a now-loaded safety room. Then help lay the standard for Oklahoma defenses to come.

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Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Jaron on Twitter @JaronSpor.