Brent Venables <\/a>and staff have attempted to do that. New face calling the offense (Ben Arbuckle). Venables calling the defense, it\u2019s now or never for this regime at OU in the SEC. No beating around the bush.<\/p>\nEvery day as we get closer to kickoff, SoonerScoop.com will count down the days with you. Starting with No. 99 and working our way to No. 0, we\u2019ll be there every step of the way.<\/p>\n
2024 stats: Played in 13 games, 23 tackles (13 solo), 13 tackles for loss, 9 sacks, two passes defended, two forced fumble, two fumble recoveries<\/p>\n
2025 outlook:<\/p>\n
No player on Oklahoma\u2019s roster seems a greater certainty to have a big year than their extremely talented pass rusher. <\/p>\n
Thomas went through two years of fighting through injuries and there being constant hope of his emergence to becoming one of the SEC\u2019s top pass rushers in year one. His explosive first step and natural ability on the corner have some predicting him as an All-American level performer.<\/p>\n
There is no more sure starter for the Sooners in 2025 than Thomas and if they are to find their way back to respectability, he\u2019ll be one of the pillars of that reemergence. <\/p>\n
2025 defensive end outlook<\/p>\n
You know OU has a superstar on its hands in R Mason Thomas. And you know OU has some young guys looking to make a splash. The big thing? Sooners have to find that second guy to go with Thomas. There are a lot of candidates, but no easy favorite as we hit the summer. Miguel Chavis has done a nice job of building up the room. Now, though, everybody needs to go to that next level. It cannot be about being raw and having potential in 2025. This season must be about the production that is coming along with everything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Crimson Countdown is officially on for the 2025 Oklahoma football season. Everybody wants to forget about 2024…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,49,48,1787,5807,1788],"class_list":{"0":"post-247339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-oklahoma-sooners","12":"tag-r-mason-thomas-22-cardinal-gibbons","13":"tag-regwall"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114940835481447866","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}