Estimating the impact of OU's transfers: Defense
About a year ago, I wrote about the muted impact of transfers on the Oklahoma Sooners’ 2022 season. Despite the perception that Brent Venables tried to overhaul the roster through the transfer portal in his first season as head coach, it appeared by the end of the season that transfers mainly provided depth behind the players already in the program. To wit, only a handful of transfers played the majority of snaps for the team on either side of the ball during the 2022 season.
Last season played out in similar fashion for the transfer crop of 13 players arriving in Norman. Three transfers were on the field for the majority of plays for their units: defensive end Rondell Bothroyd, offensive tackle Walter Rouse, and tight end Austin Stogner. Seven transfers actually got more snaps for the Sooners in 2023 than they did at their previous homes in 2022: Rouse, Stogner, Bothroyd, TE Blake Smith, edge Trace Ford, defensive lineman Jacob Lacey, and DL Da’Jon Terry. (Wide receiver Andrel Anthony certainly would have crossed both thresholds had he not suffered a season-ending knee injury in the middle of the year.)
For the most part, we mainly saw OU’s transfers solidifying positions such as defensive back and offensive line. Players like safety Reggie Pearson and OL Troy Everett got rotational action. The coaches weren’t counting on them as cornerstones of the team, though, based on snap counts.
According to 247Sports, the Sooners landed the No. 20 transfer class in 2024, with a total of 16 additions. How big of an impact will those transfers have on the field this fall? Here’s some speculation about the defense, and we’ll follow up with a separate post on the offense.
Defense
Damonic Williams, junior
Williams was the top prize for OU in the transfer portal after the retirement of Jacob Lacey left the defensive line thin on the interior. The former TCU Horned Frog’s versatility will make him a useful piece at nose tackle, three-tech defensive tackle, and even as a 4i DE.
Williams logged 477 snaps for TCU in ‘23, which works out to 53% of the squad’s total of 897. Venables and DL coach Todd Bates seem to prefer giving interior players closer to 40% of plays on the high end, which might have appealed to Williams during the courting process.
Caiden Woullard, senior
Woullard is giving off similar vibes to Bothroyd last season: a sturdy veteran to hold down the fort at strong side DE. However, the Sooners look a little deeper there at this point in the offseason relative to a year ago, which should lighten the workload of the transfer from Miami, OH. On the other hand, if Woullard builds on his performance as a pass rusher in ‘23, he could force his way on the field a disproportionate amount.
Dez Malone, fifth-year senior
OU’s acquisition of Malone from San Diego State flew under the radar in the offseason, but he could compete for the most snaps of any player at cornerback when the season kicks off. He rarely left the field for the Aztecs last year and accumulated almost 85% of the available snaps in the regular season.
Malone will undoubtedly share more time with OU’s CBs than he did with his teammates at SDSU. But given the injury history of the other players vying for time at CB, Malone at least gives the secondary a strong backup plan.
Jocelyn Malaska, third-year sophomore
A native of Bethany, Oklahoma, Malaska didn’t make an appearance in two seasons with Utah. We can safely put him in the project category – don’t count on any meaningful contributions this year.
*All snap counts courtesy of PFF.com.