Brian Bosworth touts toughness of Oklahoma defense ahead of OU’s Playoff showdown with Alabama
By David Wasson
Published:
One of the key components of Friday night’s first-round College Football Playoff matchup between No. 8 seed Oklahoma and No. 9 seed Alabama (8 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN) will be how the Sooners’ defense matches up with a Crimson Tide offense that put up over 31 points per game in 2025.
Former Sooners star Brian Bosworth was asked about that defense Friday on the SEC Network set inside Memorial Stadium, and The Boz talked about the need for a ferocious defense to accentuate a potent offense when Oklahoma made the move from the Big 12 to the SEC.
“They’re mean, they’re nasty at the point of attack, they’re evil, they’re violent, they’re everything you want in a defense, and this is exactly why Brent Venables was brought into Oklahoma four years ago,” Bosworth said.
“There was a period of time when defense at Oklahoma was not even considered important. It was ‘Let’s go score half a hundred and let the clock run out.’ As a defensive player, that’s so disheartening because so many of the great seasons that have occurred and the championships that have been won are built on a strong, tough defense and an offense that cooperates with it. You gotta have both working in tandem, and we lost that for a time under Lincoln Riley.”
Oklahoma’s defense ranked No. 1 in the SEC in yards allowed in 2025, giving up just 273.6 yards per outing, and first in the conference in points allowed at just 13.9 per game.
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. He also hosts Gulfshore Sports with David Wasson, weekdays from 3-5 pm across Southwest Florida and on FoxSportsFM.com. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
