To OU safeties coach Brandon Hall, he’s learned each player he teaches retains information in different ways.
Hall said some players need video as a teaching tool, and others may need a lesson explained on paper. Other times, his pupils just need to have instruction talked through.
Hall feels a sense of familiarity with his unit during his second spring camp leading the Sooners safeties. Having a year to understand head coach Brent Venables’ scheme, and perhaps more importantly, his players’ tendencies, time has aided Hall’s pursuit of aiding OU’s turnaround after a 6-7 season in 2022.
“To me, as much as anything, after a year they get to know my personality, and more importantly, I get to know them,” Hall said Monday.
“I want to teach them in the best way possible and everybody’s different. And so, in time, you start to understand how to communicate better with guys. ... And so, as I start to learn their personalities, I can really reach them where they need it most as far as how to teach these guys.”
Heading into 2023, Oklahoma returns most of its safety production from last season. Junior Billy Bowman Jr., who finished with 61 tackles and three interceptions in 2022, will likely lead the position group, along with senior Key Lawrence, who has made eight career starts with OU but battled injuries throughout last season.
Junior defensive back Billy Bowman Jr. and sophomore defensive back Robert Spears-Jennings during the Sooners' spring open practice on March 27
The Sooners also added fifth-year transfer Reggie Pearson from Texas Tech, and five-star recruit Peyton Bowen to join significant returners Robert Spears-Jennings and junior Damond Harmon.
With a season together and a couple additions, Hall feels confident in where his room stands during spring practices before OU’s annual spring game on April 22.
“We’re deeper and we’ve got more experience in this system,” Hall said. “And we’ll have more experience the next year and the year after and that just comes with time. We’re very multiple in what we do. We ask a lot of our safeties to do a lot of things and to play a lot of different techniques.
“And in time, as we get better and we get more experienced, you’re gonna see less of a learning curve and more of an opportunity to make plays.”
Bowman said being in the same defensive system for another season has made adjusting much easier than last spring, when Venables was entering his first season at the helm and introduced an entirely new defensive coaching staff.
“Being in the same system, second year in a row, it’s just a breeze with experience and things like that,” Bowman said March 21. You know what you have to do, we know what we have to work on as a group so we can get those things fixed.”
Spears-Jennings, who played his first ever season of safety as a freshman last season, added:
“It’s way easier now. Like last year, everybody was learning together. I was a freshman; I didn’t have nobody to really ask because we all learned at the same time.”
Hall said the safeties haven’t spent nearly as much time working on schematics and plays as they did last spring.
For him, 2023’s spring has the potential to speed up the group’s development after an up-and-down season with normality and time on their side.
“When you’re not having to install as much and you’re not having to talk through the coverages and all the different things that go along with that, you’re able to start focusing on the techniques and the details,” he said.
“And that’s when you start getting really good."
