One of the most exciting parts about Todd Bates being added to Oklahoma head football coach Brent Venables’ first staff is Bates’ penchant for landing top defensive line talent.
Bates earned Rivals’ Recruiter of the Year award for his work with Clemson’s 2020 signing class. Bates and Clemson signed the No. 1 overall player in the 2020 class according to 247Sports’ composite rankings in Damascus, Md., defensive tackle Bryan Bresee. Highly-touted defensive linemen DeMonte Capehart and Tre Williams were also a part of that 2020 signing class.
Before that, Bates signed Tyler Davis in the 2019 class. In Clemson’s 2021 signing class, Bates and the Tigers added Payton Page.
In his first meeting with the media since joining the OU staff, Bates touched on why he expects to continue to sign some of the nation’s top defensive line talent now at Oklahoma.
“Man, it’s because they’re attracted a lot of times [to] the scheme that you run. Does it highlight their skillset? Does it create a one-on-one matchup? And then you’ve got to go recruit guys that can win those. And they want to play in an aggressive scheme, attacking scheme, and that’s what we’ve been,” Bates said.
The track record speaks for itself, too. In the past 10 seasons as Clemson’s defensive coordinator, Venables’ defenses amassed 1,159 tackles for loss and 448 sacks to lead the nation in both categories. In the 2019 NFL Draft, three Clemson defensive linemen—Clelin Ferrell (No. 4), Christian Wilkins (No. 13) and Dexter Lawrence (No. 17)—were selected in the first round. Defensive end Austin Bryant was also taken by Detroit in the fourth round of the 2019 NFL Draft.
“We’ve led the country in tackles for loss and sacks over the last decade. And that’s what guys are attracted to. They want to see [that]. They want to have a chance to produce, and they want to see you producing draft picks. And so you’ve got to be productive, and that’s what we’ve been under Coach Venables’ defense. We’ve been very productive, and we’ve been very intentional, and it hasn’t just happened by chance. You don’t do something 10 years in a row and that’s just by chance. So, recruits are drawn to that. They really [are],” Bates said.
Bates is also confident in the the fact that he, Venables and the rest of Oklahoma’s staff are concerned with their players’ lives and development beyond the football field.
“And they know that it’s not just that. The relationships that we’re able to build, these guys are part of our families and we really have those real relationships. That’s what I would say that really drives it over the edge. When you truly know inside and out your players and they truly know you, you’re going to get the best out of them. And that’s what we’ve done, man. We’ve been at our best because we’ve been able to get the best out of our players,” Bates said.
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