Head Coach Brent Venables has kept quiet about his pursuits for the coaching staff, but it seems the cat’s out of the bag now as the Oklahoma Sooners finally have a new defensive coordinator with Nate Dreiling. If you don’t instantly recognize the name, you’re not alone. However, that seems to be par for the course in Venables’ overhauling of the Sooners football program.
Nate Dreiling Is Oklahoma’s Next Defensive Coordinator
Venables Isn’t Stepping Back
The Arkansas State Wolfpack’s loss is the Oklahoma Sooners’ gain. After just four weeks with the program, Dreiling is out the door and on his way to Norman. As the Sooners are often seen as a powerhouse program, the norm has been for both players and staff alike to be established names. After failing to create success in 2024 with that guiding principle, however, Venables is going in a different direction.
Dreiling is set to step in primarily as a linebackers coach and hold the coordinator title essentially in name only. While he will still maintain responsibility for the defense as a whole, Dreiling won’t be the one calling the plays. Currently, it’s looking like part of the agreement is that Venables will be Oklahoma’s defensive playcaller for 2025.
Many were expecting Venables to find someone he could completely entrust the defense to. Wes Goodwin was expected to be that man. Instead, Goodwin is becoming an analyst for the defense while Venables takes full control. After all, his national championship defenses are what led him to the head coaching job in the first place. So it seems that Venables is intent on sticking with what brought him here and leaving the rest to Ben Arbuckle and Dreiling.
Who Is Nate Dreiling?
From 2009 to 2013 Dreiling was a linebacker for the Division II Pittsburg State Gorillas. As part of their National Championship squad in 2011, Dreiling was also the Division II Defensive Player of the Year. He was also a First Team Division II All-American for three years straight from 2010 to 2013.
In 2018, he returned to Pittsburg State as a defensive coordinator. The team went 8-3 with an average of 4.82 yards given up per play. In 2021, Dreiling spent a season as the defensive run game and linebackers coach at Southeastern Missouri State University. In 2022, New Mexico State and Jerry Kill would name Dreiling as the defensive coordinator. Over the course of two seasons, the Aggies would go on to a combined record of 17-11, a Quick Lane Bowl win, and a losing contest for the Conference USA championship in 2023.
Dreiling is now coming to Oklahoma after a season at Utah State. While there, Dreiling spent time, very briefly, as a defensive coordinator. After Blake Anderson was fired before the start of the season, however, Dreiling was elevated to head coach. It wasn’t pretty, seeing Utah State regularly losing by 45 or more points, and winning just four games.
Why Choose Dreiling?
This hiring is part of a larger theme for the Sooners football program. When Venables was gearing up for Oklahoma’s first season in the SEC, he went all out. The biggest names from the transfer portal came in to stack both sides of the ball. Jeff Lebby and Seth Littrell arrived to handle the offense. The second-best high school quarterback in the entire nation, behind Arch Manning, quickly found himself as the starting quarterback.
All that time, energy, and money spent on bringing in big names and talents didn’t pan out well. So, instead of following the tried and true tradition that brought him disaster, Venables is pivoting to a new tactic: The unknowns and the left behinds.
Some of the best and brightest from the FCS are being brought in from the transfer portal. Instead of languishing in the PAC-2, Arbuckle and John Mateer are traveling from the West Coast to the panhandle state. Rounding out this grand plan is Dreiling, who’s yet to truly make a name for himself on the national stage. Is the Sooners football program becoming the new home for college football’s underdogs? Time will tell.
Last Thoughts on Oklahoma Sooners Signing Nate Dreiling
There are two things to take away from the hiring of Dreiling. The first is that we’re seeing a new breed of Sooners football coming under Venables’ leadership. The second is that Venables is going to be heavily relying on Arbuckle this fall.
By taking near total control of the defense, Venables may be making things incredibly difficult for every opponent they face. However, in doing so, he’s ceding one of the key aspects of being a head coach to his other coordinator. A co-head coach is not something we see too often, for all the reasons you’d expect, but it looks like we’ll be seeing exactly that at Oklahoma.
How will the duo of Venables and Dreiling play out? We’ll get a glimpse this spring, but we’ll only know for sure once the season starts. It’s unusual and unexpected, and that’s exactly par for the course in this new era of Oklahoma Sooners football.
Main Image: James Snook-Imagn Images
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