Good, long read on Danny Stutsman

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As his teammates trickled out of OU football’s Red Room, Danny Stutsman lingered by the southeast stairs, conversing with Brian Bosworth.

In the first team meeting of 2023 fall camp, Bosworth had just delivered a rousing speech to coach Brent Venables’ Team 129, but Stutsman hoped to glean a little extra from his legendary predecessor that day.

Their embrace and exchange is visible for 16 seconds during Season 2, Episode 1 of “OUDNA: All-Access with OU football,” a Hard Knocks-esque show OU athletics began producing in 2022. What’s less clear from the scene’s suppressed audio is, what was actually said between the two formidable All-American linebackers?

Bosworth recounted the conversation with Stutsman to the Tulsa World later in the 2023 season: “He came up to me after the speech and said, ‘Hey, well, what do I have to do to become a leader? How did you do it? How did you become a leader?’”

In reply, the hardened 58-year-old offered his 20-year-old protégé this advice: “Leadership is one where you have to be willing to take on that role, but you have to show that role. It’s not a speaking role. It’s not done with words. It’s done with actions. And it’s done with actions in the desire to be the leader. You have to become the leader because others look up to you as the leader. Not that you are self-proclaiming yourself as leader. You have to become the leader.”

To the same tune as Bosworth, Venables often reiterates his belief that leadership is not a position, but instead, “leadership is action.” In 2023, Stutsman became the embodiment of that phrase, emerging as the Sooners’ physical propellant and emotional compass at pivotal points throughout the season.

In retrospect, Venables often tells the story of the “funny guy” who, at the end of his freshman year, took longer than his new head coach would’ve liked to seek him out and ask for a playbook. However, Stutsman began to take his football education very seriously following their “come to Jesus” talk.

After leading the Big 12 with 125 tackles as a sophomore, Stutsman recognized the Sooners needed him to step up as a leader during 2023 spring ball. In June, he took the entire defense on a bonding retreat to Broken Bow Lake. By July, Venables was extolling Stutsman’s growth, announcing that the player who started his tenure without a playbook was now capable of leading a walkthrough by himself.

Bosworth’s preseason encouragement to Stutsman further fueled the junior defender entering what became a banner year. From the moment he spoke to reporters early in fall camp with blood trickling from a gash in his nose, it was apparent Stutsman was entering the 2023 season with a different kind of intensity, bent on setting the standard for the Sooners. And, boy, did he.

Roll the tape

Few if any players in the country got off to as torrid a start to 2023 as Stutsman.

He tied a career high with 17 tackles against SMU, returned a one-handed interception 30 yards for a touchdown against Tulsa and racked up 8.5 tackles for loss through OU’s first five games.

Early on, his improvement from 2022 — when he registered a team-high 22 missed tackles, per Pro Football Focus — was palpable and the Butkus Award hype was real.

But it wasn’t just Stutsman who was getting better. All the linebackers — second-years Jaren Kanak, Kip Lewis and Kobie McKinzie, in particular — showed improvement.

That was thanks in part to Stutsman, who led not just at practices and in games, but was also hosting additional linebacker film study sessions at his residence on the regular.

“He’s a good leader. He pushes everybody and we push him, and it’s just showing on Saturdays really well right now,” McKinzie said before the start of Big 12 play. “...He’s acting like a pro, Monday through Sunday, literally, and that just goes to show, you put in the work and it’ll all come down.”

The speech

If ever there was a time for leadership with words, it was in the bowels of the Cotton Bowl as the Sooners prepared to face Texas, looking to flip the script one year after their Red River rival embarrassed them 49-0.

Stutsman rose to the occasion with a pregame pep talk for the ages.

“I’m certain about two things in f***ing life,” he shouted through the Oklahoma locker room. “I’m certain that, one, Oklahoma only fears God, and No. 2, Texas fears Oklahoma.”

Galvanized by his remarks, OU’s defense positioned its offense for the game winning drive with little more than a minute remaining, largely because of its remarkable goal-line stand in the early fourth quarter.

Stutsman delivered the third of three straight stuffs of Jonathon Brooks, taking the Longhorns’ running back down by his legs at the 2-yard line, which set up Billy Bowman’s fourth down stop of receiver Xavier Worthy to force a turnover on downs.

OU prevailed vindictively, 38-35, on the back of its most thrilling defensive sequence in a Red River Rivalry game, possibly since Roy Williams’ “Superman play” back in 2001.

A couple days later, video evidence of Stutsman’s speech made its way to social media. Sooner Nation won’t soon forget it.

“What he was saying in the locker room, it made you feel some type of way — exactly how y’all felt watching it on Twitter (or) wherever it was — in the locker room,” defensive back Kendel Dolby said. “It was the same thing. ‘OK, it’s time to go.’ It was a good speech. It was a great speech actually.”

From the sideline

OU’s College Football Playoff aspirations were dashed in a 38-33 loss to Kansas at the end of October that also saw its defensive star go down.

Stutsman banged legs with Cheetah linebacker Dasan McCullough while covering the end zone in the late second quarter and exited the game with an ankle injury, returning for just one defensive snap in the second half before calling it a day.

Without Stutsman directing traffic, OU’s defense looked bewildered at times. Venables didn’t want to chalk the loss up to his absence, but there was little doubt it was felt.

Try as he might, Stutsman didn’t heal enough to play in Bedlam the next week, as the Sooners dropped a second-straight contest to Oklahoma State.

One thing stood out, though, even when Stutsman wasn’t playing: He could often be seen close to Venables on the sideline, trying to help throughout the games.

“He’s still a great leader,” McKinzie said the week after Bedlam. “He was still vocal Saturday. He was encouraging us when it wasn’t going well because we got in there and they kind of struck us a little bit. ... But he was still a great, vocal leader.”

Accountability

Stutsman was set to make his long-awaited return against West Virginia, but beforehand, he admonished any teammates who had given up on the season and urged them to refocus on the opportunities still ahead.

“We really just need a deeper buy-in from the guys,” Stutsman said on The Podcast on the Prairie. “Like, look, if you don’t wanna be here, bro, don’t be here. We will find other people that want to play for the University of Oklahoma. So you really gotta buy in now… and really see how bad you want this. Because we still want to win, bro.”

OU’s goal of remaining in the Big 12 title race through the last three weeks of the regular season got off to a rocky start against the Mountaineers. The Sooners defense conceded an early 7-0 lead after giving up a 32-yard completion with ease on third-and-2.

Venables was heated after the play and blame for the miscue fell on Stutsman’s poor communication. But Stutsman adjusted in the eventual rout of WVU, helping hold the Mountaineers without a touchdown in the second half. He wasn’t above reproach when he fell short, owning up to his mistakes postgame.

Overall, Stutsman’s return from injury was a huge boost for the Sooners as they got their season back on track.

“There’s a real emotional lift that you get when he’s out there,” Venables said. “...I think he brings out the best in people when he’s out there.”

Toughness

The trip to BYU for OU’s last road game of the season was miserable for Stutsman, who picked up food poisoning before the team’s flight out of Norman.

He didn’t eat much and couldn’t keep anything down the day before the game. Venables, who thought Stutsman had the flu, anticipated he might not be available against the Cougars. However, Stutsman told his coach in no uncertain terms that he was playing.

Remaining on IVs up until kick off for the nourishment he needed to perform, Stutsman gave his all against the Cougars. He recorded 10 tackles and sacked BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff in the fourth quarter, forcing a fumble that led to the game winning touchdown.

On a smaller scale, his effort paralleled to Michael Jordan’s “flu game” — later revealed to be food poisoning — in which he willed the Chicago Bulls over the Utah Jazz in the 1997 NBA Finals. For the second straight week, Stutsman was undeterred in his quest to keep OU’s Big 12 championship chances alive.

“There was no way I wasn’t gonna play,” Stutsman said. “It was so much hard work, I’m not gonna let some food get between us and a Big 12 championship.”

Heads held high

After committing four of Oklahoma’s six turnovers in its 38-24 Alamo Bowl loss to Arizona, Jackson Arnold was disappointed, but Stutsman didn’t let the freshman quarterback keep his head down long.

He put his left arm around Arnold as they strolled across the Alamodome turf postgame, telling the young former five-star recruit to keep his head up and letting him know his teammates had his back.

“As soon as the game was over, I asked, like, where’s Jackson?” Stutsman said on his podcast. “Because, I mean, that’s hard, dude — being a freshman after a football game and you just put on that performance. You probably have the weight of the earth on your shoulders, dude, so I just wanted to be one of the first guys to talk to him.

“Because I know how difficult it’s gonna be, right? You’re thinking the worst of the worst in that moment. So, I mean, like I don’t care about the cameras in that situation. I’m finding a brother, family, just to be the person to put an arm around him and say, ‘Look we all got your back. Like, don’t think this is on you.’”

At the end of an up-and-down season — where OU fell short of its CFP and Big 12 title plans and Stutsman was arguably snubbed for Butkus honors — he was still leading with action.

Leading into the SEC

Stutsman remains one of the team’s biggest jokers and managed to have fun along the way in 2023: Celebrating big plays and getting matching “Horns Down” tattoos with Kanak. Appearing on The Pat McAfee Show and landing an NIL deal for T-shirts based on his OU-Texas speech. Announcing his return for 2024 in an iconic video with Bosworth.

But while much of the outside world reveled in his amusing extracurriculars, those who spent every day with him practicing and watching film took greater pride in his growth as a leader.

“Danny had an amazing year,” Venables said at the end of the regular season. “As good of a leader as we have on our team. As good of a leader as I’ve been around. His passion, his love, his respect that he has for his teammates and his teammates have for him. Leadership is — I’ve never looked at it as a position. I think it’s about action. And he’s represented kind of everything that you would want from a leader.

“He’s made everybody around him better and there’s not a player in our locker room that loves the University of Oklahoma and respects his opportunity and what this has meant for him and his life more than Danny Stutsman. So I got great thankfulness and appreciation for what Danny represents and what he’s done to help us the last two years.”

With Stutsman skipping the NFL draft, choosing instead to march OU into the SEC, Venables is expecting more exceptional leadership from his standout linebacker in 2024.

“Danny, as you all know, when it’s time to work, there’s nobody that’s more committed,” Venables said. “And he knows he’s got work to do. … He’s hungry. He’s never satisfied. He recognizes where he wants to make some improvement. And he’ll be committed to do so. But he’s a leader. There’s an emotional part of him that other guys can step up and they will when that day comes.”