The Oklahoma Sooners spring game provided an opportunity to see several new faces that joined the squad this spring. One of the more highly anticipated players to watch in this year’s Red-White game was Indiana transfer Dasan McCullough.
Coming over from the Hoosiers, McCullough made the move from defensive end/edge rusher to Brent Venables’ cheetah linebacker position. As a former high school safety, McCullough is familiar with playing in space, but he showed quite the comfort level in a strong performance that has Sooners’ observers buzzing.
McCullough made an impact on the first play of the game, deflecting Drake Stoops’ pass attempt, setting the tone for a defense that came out strong in the opening quarter.
Making the switch didn’t look all that taxing. McCullough was flying around, running sideline to sideline to make plays, playing fast to the football, and showing off his physicality in the run game, stuffing Gavin Sawchuk on a short-yardage run for little to no gain.
There’s a need for McCullough and the rest of the Sooners’ defense to take a step this season. And a lot will be riding on how well the former four-star player can get a handle on his new position. With just one spring in the books, it doesn’t look like that will be a problem.
“Just from like a technique standpoint, from practice number one to (practice) 15 has been a crazy improvement,” McCullough said after the game. “Just learning different checks and how Coach Venables really wants to write his defense has been the most challenging part. Really just time has gotten me better. Just time and reps is all I needed.”
In just 15 practices and a spring game, McCullough looks like he’ll be an impactful player on a defense that had a nice day overall on Saturday in the spring game.
For Oklahoma’s defensive unit, there’s only room to get better. They were 122nd in yards allowed in 2022 and 99th in scoring defense. They’ll improve on both of those rankings this year. By how much is still to be determined. But if the early returns from the spring game are any indication, this is a much more talented roster on the defensive side of the ball than it was this time a year ago.
Though the Big 12 schedule will be the proof in the pudding, McCullough and the defense provided a glimpse of that improvement on Saturday.
“I feel like I played really well,” McCullough shared. “There’s some little things I definitely need to work on. I had a little tweak in my knee so that’s why I stopped playing, but I’ll be all good. I think the defense did great today. I think the defense had a really good day. Just some little details we got to clean up, but that’s normal spring ball stuff, so not too major.”
Though there are things to improve on, McCullough likes where the defense is and has the belief that this team is going to be really good.
“I feel like, as a group, this defense is one of none,” McCullough said. “We have guys at every position, and we have depth, too. I think we’re gonna make a great run.”
[affiliatewidget_smgtolocal]
[lawrence-auto-related count=5 category=1366]
[mm-video type=playlist id=01eqbz7cqqgxy50qwt player_id=01eqbvp13nn1gy6hd4 image=]
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 John on Twitter @john9williams.