The Football Brainiacs

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A little less than one year ago when Bob Stoops hired a defensive line coach to replace Jerry Montgomery, it was a name that, for most of us, came out of left field. And despite some of the more familiar names being thrown out at the moment as a possible replacement for Diron Reynolds, I get the sense Stoops could pull another rabbit out of his hat.

With respect to those familiar names we just talked about, by now you’ve surely seen and/or heard two former OU defensive ends mentioned as possible candidates. Calvin Thibodeaux played at OU from 2002-06 and is currently on the staff at Kansas as the defensive line coach. C.J. Ah You also played at OU from 2005-06 and was the Sooners special teams QC coach before just recently named the defensive line coach at Vanderbilt.

I’m not saying it won’t be either of those guys, but when I think back to when Stoops hired Montgomery he was a guy at a major program who could recruit his you know what off. And while Reynolds may not have been a full-fledged asst. coach at Stanford or necessarily known as a dynamic recruiter, he did bring with him a considerable amount of NFL experience.

As to who could be a good fit and in my estimation THE guy Stoops should target, Michigan State defensive line coach Ron Burton (BIO). In fact, TFB has been told by a source that Burton’s name has already been mentioned as one of the names under consideration as a possible candidate.

If you watch enough college football, you should already know just how good Michigan State’s defensive line has been under Burton’s guidance. They are a unit that consistently stops the run and gets after the passer.

In an effort to try and learn more about Burton as a coach, I reached out to someone earlier today who is familiar with both Burton and the Michigan State program. Here is some of what I was told. Again, this is all according to our source.

– “OU will probably have to pay for a premium for Burton because I can tell you that Michigan State loves Ron, and they aren’t going to let him go without a fight. If the Sooners offer him, it’s going to be a bidding war.”

– As much as Burton seems to be respected for his ability to coach, apparently he may be even more valuable as a recruiter. “Before Burton came, the guys (MSU staff) wouldn’t even recruit Chicago because they felt like it was just too hard to pull kids out of there. Since Burton came, however, he’s got a bunch of top recruits out of that area. He even recruits Texas.”

– When he arrived, Burton completely turned the Michigan State defensive line around. He is a guy that commands a lot of respect and gets a lot of out of his players. The turnaround on the line at since his arrival speaks for itself.

– He is very well liked by his players and by really almost anyone that meets him. “He’s a salt of the earth kind of guy, really humble and really cool guy…he can talk about anything and he’s dialed in…he’s not one of those football guys that can only talk about football. He can connect with you on a lot of different subjects.”

My source did mention Burton has a son who is a walk-on at Michigan State and that if OU were to offer, they were not sure what (if any) type of role that could play in a potential decision to leave. Obviously, a walk-on spot could likely be made available at OU if that was a deciding factor.

At this point we do not have any confirmation as to whether or not there has been any contact between Burton and OU. We simply do know his name is one that has been mentioned within the program as a potential candidate.

Either way, my vote is for Burton to be THE guy OU targets in this search. In my opinion, you have to make him tell you no before you move on to anyone else.

That said, odds are there will be other candidates and we will be looking into those over the next several days.