Kansas has played a couple of different quarterbacks this season due to injury as Jalon Daniels and Jason Bean have both received starts. To get ready to face the Jayhawks, the Oklahoma defense is seeing two scout-team quarterbacks — head coach Brent Venables and redshirt sophomore General Booty.
Venables spoke about his role as the scout-team QB earlier this week.
“General’s there, too, but we split reps,” Brent Venables said. “They’ve got two, we’ve got two. General does a really good job – much better than me – at emulating what the precision and all those things might look like.”
Venables has served as the scout-team quarterback dating back to his days at Clemson.
Back then, he was referred to as Jimmy Greenbeans.
Venables likes seeing what a quarterback will see as he goes up against his defense. While he’s doing the best he can to get his Sooners squad ready, he feels that slowing down Kansas will be tough to do. Jason Bean is expected to start against the Sooners as Jalon Daniels continues to deal with a back issue.
“You know, they’re excellent. They’re really good. And great systems. Again, they put a lot of stress on you because they’re multi-dimensional. They’re throwers and runners, both,” Venables said. “And their decision making [is good]. Super well-coached. Make very few mistakes. I think decision making and taking care of the football are the two most important qualities of a quarterback. They do both of those incredibly well.”
Venables doesn’t have the strongest arm and isn’t the quickest, but by being the scout-team quarterback, he can make sure that his defenders are in the right place and playing their assignments correctly.
His hope is that the hard work during practice will pay off on the weekends.
“I’m not sure if we do a great job of emulating them. We tried our best, but both have been really, really good when they’ve played,” Venables said of Bean and Daniels.
“Certainly Bean is just under 70 percent of his passes. I think nine touchdowns, two interceptions is it. So doing a great job delivering. And he’s giving the ball to everybody. He’s able to buy time, keep his eyes down the field, created explosive plays. He had one against Oklahoma State – he’s running to his left and Oklahoma State had them covered. And then the receiver just does a great job of working open. He lofts it across his body and hits the guy in stride up the sideline in a really tight window. Just outstanding plays, and he’s the quote-unquote backup. So they’ve done a really good job and have really good quarterbacks.”
