Brenen Thompson has a calling card. That's common knowledge.
But the Brenen Thompson you’ll see in 2024 is no one-trick pony.
“Guys gotta respect the speed — if they don’t respect the speed, that’s six,” Thompson remarked after practice Monday. “But I’m gonna come thump some stuff now. I’m gonna come thump some stuff. Y’all gonna see Friday.”
The rising junior is one of the fastest players in all of college football, and that’s no secret. He recorded a personal best of 10.18 seconds in the 100 meters while still in high school, and when he enrolled at the University of Texas in 2022, his plan was to pursue a dual-sport future. He spent one year as a wide receiver with the Longhorn football program and moonlighted as a sprinter with the track team, but soon grew disenfranchised on the Forty Acres. He entered the transfer portal last April and made a rather expedient decision to make the move across the Red River.
As Thompson explains it, he was out of his element in Austin. Norman always felt much more comfortable, and he might have ended up a Sooner out of high school had Lincoln Riley and the former staff not backed off their pursuit of him. The 5-foot-8 speed demon is a native of Spearman, Texas, an isolated small town in the panhandle that’s geographically further north than Norman. OU is closer to home for Thompson than any other FBS football program save for Texas Tech.
He's a country kid who likes to spend his free time fishing. Oklahoma fits him, and it’s provided an opportunity for him to find a fit on the gridiron as well. In his first season as a Sooner, Brent Venables and the OU staff deployed Thompson in virtually the only way they could — as a deep-ball threat.
“What you may or may not know,” explained Venables, “is he didn’t play much receiver, if at all, in high school. He was an athlete, played a lot of quarterback. Goes to Texas and has a bad hamstring, was in the two-deep but didn’t really play much at all. Had a little bit of game experience in a couple games. So he was an inexperienced guy, a track guy.”
And when Thompson was on the field for Oklahoma in 2023, he was going deep. Everyone knew it, but even so, not everyone could stop it. Of his seven receptions on the season, five covered at least 30 yards, including a 53-yard touchdown bomb from Dillon Gabriel against TCU and a 63-yard scoring strike from Jackson Arnold in OU’s Alamo Bowl loss to Arizona.
So, okay, he’s a constant big-play threat. But that doesn’t explain how a guy who caught seven passes all season is suddenly listed as a co-starter on Oklahoma’s inaugural 2024 depth chart. So allow Venables himself to shed some light on why it is that Thompson’s shot up the pecking order at wide receiver this offseason.
“What I love the most about Brenen Thompson [is that] he’s become one of our best leaders,” the head ball coach declared. “Incredibly vocal. Really bright young guy that really cares about his teammates. He can run the entire route tree. He’s focused on not being labeled as just a 9-router or a go-ball guy. He’s done a great job, whether it’s the curls, the mesh, the digs across the middle of the field. Shows great toughness and durability; had the most yardage of any of our receivers through the course of fall camp.
“He’s competed and played at a really high level and just a physical, tough level for a smaller diminutive guy,” Venables continued. “So, really proud of his growth as a player, but every bit as much as one of our vocal leaders on offense. Just plays with tremendous, tremendous effort all the time.”
A mere speed merchant wouldn’t be breaking camp as a co-starter in an Oklahoma receiver room that features the likes of Nic Anderson, Andrel Anthony, Jalil Farooq and ballyhooed transfer Deion Burks. But Thompson isn’t just a speed merchant anymore. He’s added a substantial amount of weight to his frame — he was listed at 155 pounds last season — and he’s made a concerted effort to add more tools to his proverbial bag.
“You gotta be able to play bigger than you are,” said Thompson. “I know most guys that play that are small, they usually play bigger than they are. And so being able to go out there and deliver hits and be able to play bigger than 170 [pounds], that’s huge for me. So I took that weight room seriously. Blocking on the perimeter, being able to get off hands — that all goes back to Schmitty and what we did in the summer. I’m at like 170 right now, so I gained about 15 pounds from last year.”
And it doesn’t hurt — no pun intended — that Thompson is now fully healthy for the first time in his collegiate career. A nagging hamstring injury hampered his lone season in Austin, and injuries limited him to just six games in an Oklahoma uniform last fall.
“I had a great summer this year,” Thompson observed. “I think that’s where it all started for me. My goal was, attack that summer. I finally felt healthy with the position my body was in, and so just getting with Schmitty and attacking that every single day, I think it really upgraded my game. It’s not about one week or one day; it’s about months and months and months of preparation. Being able to get my weight up, get my body right, get stronger, get healthier. And that’s what happened.”
Now, as the dawn of his junior season fast approaches, Thompson is gearing up for a renaissance year after his strong fall-camp showing. The Hollywood Brown comparisons will naturally get thrown around for any undersized Oklahoma wideout that demonstrates an ability to do more than just stretch the field. But in Oklahoma’s talent-rife offense, Thompson doesn’t need to be Hollywood Brown. All he needs to do is continue to grow into the complete receiver that he’s set out to become.
“Ever since I came out of high school, that was my goal,” he explained. “I came out of high school as an athlete, and I went to Texas my freshman year as a wideout, and here as a wideout. So learning the position’s a big part of that, and I think over the last three years, I’ve done a great job of that. It took a few years to really learn the position. Playing wideout at this level is not something easy, especially when you’re not taught it in high school. Coming from a place like that, you gotta learn everything.”
And Thompson isn’t done learning, especially given that he’s under the thumb of Oklahoma receivers coach Emmett Jones. A technical savant who thrives on development, Jones isn’t in the business of letting his players coast. The nod as a co-starter doesn’t mean Thompson has made it. Jones will continue to challenge him at every turn, as he does with each of the receivers under his tutelage. For Thompson’s part, he’s ready to meet the challenge head-on.
“I think I got the highest expectations, even over Coach V,” he opined. “I think my expectations of myself are higher than what he [expects] of me.
“I’m trying to go win for this team. I’m trying to put this team first.”
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