OU DL Da'Jon Terry on the 2023 season: 'The expectation is to dominate'
NORMAN — Entering the transfer portal wasn’t an unfamiliar process for Da’Jon Terry.
The former 2019 three-star recruit had already transferred once, when he left Kansas for Tennessee prior to the 2021 season. When he decided to enter again after last season, Terry knew what to expect and he knew what he was looking for, too.
Terry, a defensive tackle, wanted a place that felt like home and had a winning, competitive culture. He found that when he first talked to OU head coach Brent Venables and defensive tackle coach Todd Bates.
“My first conversation when I talked to coach Bates and coach V, (I realized) it’s a defensive-minded team,” Terry said during OU media day on Tuesday. “That was something I wanted to be a part of. With coach Bates and his values and his reputation for sending people to the NFL, that was another thing that made me want to come here. It’s been amazing.
“This place is on the rise. It’s like a winning culture. That’s really what I wanted to be part of.”
Bates and Venables quickly became convinced that Terry could bring much-needed experience and toughness to an OU defensive line that has lacked both in recent years. They sold Terry on their vision, and he officially transferred to the Sooners earlier this summer.
There’s a lot of optimism that Terry can make a quick impact when fall camp begins.
Terry appeared in 36 games and made nine starts in his four combined seasons with Tennessee and Kansas. His 2022 season with the Volunteers was a career-best campaign, as he started seven games and totaled 16 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss and 2 sacks. Listed at 6-foot-3 and 321 pounds, he weighs the most of any OU defensive lineman.
It’s been a fast learning process, but Terry is confident his experience at Tennessee and Kansas has helped prepare him to make an immediate impact on the field.
“It was the SEC, so everything’s faster," Terry said. "Just the coaching styles of both coach (Venables) and (Tennessee coach Josh Heupel), they’re real player-oriented coaches… Now I’m here with coach Bates, another great D-line coach. He’s going to teach me some great things. He’s already taught me a lot of great things.”
Venables has emphasized that any players transferring to Oklahoma need to be a fit both on and off the field, and he was confident that Terry would fit the Sooners’ culture. Terry has proven Venables right so far — he spent the summer constantly watching film and pushing himself through workouts.
“It's one of the qualities I fell in love with the first time I spoke to him,” Venables said of Terry’s work ethic. “And then every conversation, it was more of the same. And for me, connecting and having somebody that even if you're faking it, you think like I want you to think. You're hungry, you're driven, you're ambitious, you're humble, you're tough, great focus, you're a guy that's about the work.
“I just wanted to find out who he was as a human being, as a leader, as a young person chasing his dreams, as a teammate.That was important to me as well and to us. And we haven't done a whole lot yet on the field with him, but he got all the other stuff right from a transition standpoint… He's all those things that I just said, and that fits the mold of what we want. And again, to me, his focus and his toughness and his ambition and vision will make that group better.”
OU defensive coordinator Ted Roof said Terry immediately established himself as a great teammate, and that’s been a key focus for the Mississippi native.
“My mindset is to always just lead by example. That’s what my mom taught me, to lead by example. The things that I do, people just follow me. I want to be that piece of the team that people can lean on because I’m older now. So I want to be the person people can lean on and I can teach them from my experiences that I’ve had.”
With fall camp set to begin Thursday, the coaching staff has a simple expectation for Terry — “dominate.”
“The expectation is to dominate,” Terry said. “That’s what I want to do and that’s what I’m going to do. They were saying I dominated in the Big 12 before I dominated in the SEC, so I can come here and dominate again. That’s what they want to see and that’s what I’m going to give them.”