It took Brent Venables four years to build Oklahoma's defense into something that lived up to his reputation as one of the top defensive minds in college football.
In 2025, he has put it all together. The Sooners are one win away from locking up a College Football Playoff bid thanks to a fearsome defense that currently ranks No. 6 nationally in both scoring and stop rate.
What is stop rate? It's a basic measurement of success: the percentage of a defense's drives that end in punts, turnovers or a turnover on downs. Defensive coordinators have the same goal regardless of their scheme, opponent or conference: prevent points and get off the field. Stop rate is a simple metric but can offer a good reflection of a defense's effectiveness on a per-drive basis in today's faster-tempo game.
Stop rate is not an advanced stat and is no substitute for Bill Connelly's SP+, FPI or other more comprehensive metrics. It's merely a different method for evaluating success on defense against FBS opponents. Here's the current leaderboard entering Week 14:
As the defensive coordinator at Clemson, Venables' group finished No. 1 in this metric in 2014, 2017 and 2018. Oklahoma's defense has been on a steady rise up the stop rate standings during his tenure as Oklahoma's head coach, with a No. 64 finish during his debut season in 2022 before improving to No. 21 last season. Considering what he inherited, that's strong year-over-year growth.
This season's unit has helped power five wins over ranked opponents. During Saturday's 17-6 victory over No. 22 Missouri, the defense had 11 stops, a second-half shutout and gave up only 57 yards on 17 carries to Tigers running back Ahmad Hardy, the nation's leading rusher entering the game.
Just as they did at Clemson, Venables and his defensive staff have constructed an elite defensive line. Pass rusher Taylor Wein has earned SEC weekly honors in back-to-back games and has been a breakout star as a redshirt sophomore, but the real strength of this unit is in its depth with eight different D-linemen playing more than 250 snaps this season.
The Sooners rank No. 1 nationally in sacks (41) and tackles for loss (110) and No. 2 in yards per rush (2.44). This defense is consistently lifting up an offense that is scoring just 21.8 points per game (100th in FBS) since quarterback John Mateer returned from thumb surgery. The Sooners are 4-2 since then against a brutally tough SEC schedule, and five of those six were one-score games entering the fourth quarter.
A few more updates to note regarding this week's stop rate standings:
Only one defense moved into the top 25 in the standings this week: Georgia. The Bulldogs rose to No. 20 thanks to their 35-3 rout of Charlotte on Saturday. East Carolina dropped from 21st to 36th following a 58-24 blowout loss on the road at UTSA.
Texas has a stop rate of 45.2% over its past three games, which ranks 121st in FBS since the start of November. To be fair, the Longhorns pulled their starters during the third quarter against Arkansas on Saturday and were missing All-SEC linebacker Anthony Hill Jr., but the Razorbacks did score on 7 of 11 drives in a 52-37 loss.
Maryland had a top-five stop rate through five games but is really struggling with stops on 41.5% of drives over its last four games. The Terrapins have lost seven in a row but have already announced coach Mike Locksley will return in 2026.
Old Dominion currently has the best stop rate in the country in November at 92.1% over its past three games. The Monarchs have won four in a row and have an opportunity to achieve the program's first 10-win season since 2016 if they win out.
Note: All data is courtesy of ESPN Research. Games against FCS opponents and end-of-half drives in which the opponent took a knee or ran out the clock were filtered out.