Grinch’s defense moves to phase two

There’s no way at all to sugarcoat what happened for Oklahoma’s defense against LSU and quarterback Joe Burrow.

Use all the numbers you want, whether it was 49-14 at halftime, 63-28 final, 692 yards of total offense. You’re not putting lipstick on that pig.

But as the Sooners walked out of Atlanta two weeks ago after the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, disappointed, for sure, also realizing they had come a long way under first-year defensive coordinator Alex Grinch.

“Yea, just shook his hand,” defensive lineman Jalen Redmond said. “He told me it was just the beginning.”

In this day and age of offensive football, you could argue what Grinch walked into last January was among the toughest assignments in a long time.

A defense, routinely torched during two consecutive playoff runs, lacking in confidence and lacking in playmakers. Ranked No. 114 in total defense, last in the country in pass defense.

Could Grinch get a top 60 defense? Maybe a top 50? OU had the No. 1-ranked defense in the conference through the Big 12 championship victory. The LSU showing has the Sooners finishing No. 38 overall in total defense and second in the conference to TCU (No. 27), but the Frogs only played 12 games.

“It’s the expectation when they walk in the door, and now I think it’s instilled in a lot of our players,” head coach Lincoln Riley said. “Not that it’s done, but I think they’ve got an idea of what it looks like.

“And so I think the expectations are higher and I think all the new guys that come in over the next several years are going to walk in and have a chance to get — you see what we’ve done in 12 months; what can we do with these guys and our coaches being together for 24 months or 36 months? What does it look like? We think it looks pretty good.”

Phase one is in the books. Installing the culture, mentality, standard. It sounds so easy, but it was a 12-month grind to get the Sooners defense to where they became a strength of the team instead of a huge detriment.

Now it’s onto the next chapter. Because one thing is for sure that as much improvement as Grinch and company were able to show in 2019, that was the starting point.

It won’t be about maintaining that level in 2020, but going beyond. Beyond a top 30 defense, creating those two takeaways per game, taking that next step.

“And now, I think the next part for us is now, all these recruits have seen that,” Riley said. “They’ve seen the proof now. It’s not a mystery. It’s not us just projecting. It’s not hype. Like we did offensively a few years ago, we’re going to start to get better and better players and more of them there.”

It might be tough for OU players to watch LSU and Clemson in the national championship Monday evening. A reminder of just how close they were for the third year in a row and a reminder of the work that is still left to be done to reach that level.

The starting point this winter, however, is much different. Nothing is brand new this time around. Everybody understands, everybody is on the same page.

There are names that are going to be gone like Kenneth Murray, Neville Gallimore and Parnell Motley. Leaders who set the tone last winter and bought in with what Grinch was selling. But there’s a nucleus of guys like Redmond, Caleb Kelly, DaShaun White and Pat Fields, among several others, ready to carry the load.

And a 2020 class that’s ready to step in and do their part. Included in that is a bunch of mid-year enrollees coming to Norman this weekend at key positions like junior college defensive tackles Joshua Ellison and Perrion Winfrey and defensive back Justin Harrington.

“It’s a critical element in college football. There is no free agency. What you have is No. 1, you have to do a great job of development of the guys already on your roster,” Grinch said. “You’re always supplementing that every year. There’s a group coming in, a group leaving.

“We knew coming in, this is our first recruiting class we’ve had a chance to be a part of in bringing in, so we’re excited about that group. We’re also excited about a lot of these guys coming back.”

Grinch said it repeatedly throughout the 2019 season, can’t get caught up too much on one-game evaluations. Learn from them, obviously, but what you did one week doesn’t guarantee what will happen the next week.

Say that a lot for good and great performances. But it’s just as accurate when talking about what Burrow and the Tigers did to Grinch’s group two weeks ago.

You don’t ignore it, but you assess the appropriate amount of weight to it and get back to the grind for winter workouts and not let it linger.

“You gotta have a little bit of maturity about yourself,” Grinch said.

Phase two has arrived in Norman.