Jenni Carlson, Sports columnist
OU defensive end Jeremy Beal says his secret is preparation
Sooner football OU’s sackmaster is always prepared
By Jenni Carlson
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Published: October 12, 2009
NORMAN — To understand how Jeremy Beal has become one of the nation’s most dominating and disruptive defensive ends, you have to know about his teeth.
Baylor quarterback Nick Florence, left, is sacked by Oklahoma’s Jeremy Beal during the first half of the Sooners’ 33-7 victory Saturday. Photo by Steve Sisney, The Oklahoman
Multimedia
They’re fake.
Those perfect, pearly whites? Not real.
That’s because the Oklahoma junior had his own front teeth knocked out when he was a kid, the result of brotherly rough-housing gone bad. He thought his older brother was just playing around like always.
He wasn’t.
The false teeth were the worst of Beal’s childhood maladies, but there were others. He ran into a pipe while playing under the bleachers at his brother’s basketball game. It left a gash on his forehead that required an emergency room visit for stitches. He got smacked with a baseball bat. No hospital trip required.
"I was a tough little kid,” Beal said.
Playing college football?
"It’s nothing,” he said, laughing.
As the youngest of four children, Beal learned how to survive. He figured out a way to compensate for his shortcomings. He was younger, so he’d have to be tougher. He was smaller, so he’d have to be smarter.
He did what had to be done.
That is still the case today.
Beal admits his limitations as a defensive end — "I’m not the most athletic. I’m not the fastest. I’m not the strongest” — but he has refused to let that keep him from becoming one of the best defensive ends not only in the country but also in school history.
Through five games this season, he already has 6.5 sacks. Stay at that pace, and Beal will finish with 17 sacks and shatter OU’s single-season record.
Beal is already making an assault on the school’s career sacks record. Even though he’s played only two-plus seasons, he moved into fifth place Saturday against
Baylor when he pushed his career total to 22.
Now with the Red River Rivalry dead ahead, the
Sooners need Beal more than ever. He will be vital against the Longhorns and
Colt McCoy. He will need to do his thing — harassing and harnessing the quarterback
"Over the last two years, he’s easily been our most consistent defensive lineman ... in making plays and playing with incredible effort,” Sooner defensive coordinator
Brent Venables said after the 33-7 victory over Baylor. "He gets it. It’s easy for him.”
The reason?
"He works very hard in preparation.”
Beal didn’t arrive on campus as a ballyhooed recruit. In fact, the Sooners refused to offer him a scholarship after he went to their summer camp before his senior year at
Creekview High School in
Carrollton,
Texas.
His coach there was a good friend of Venables’.
"C’mon, man,” Venables remembers telling him, "bring me a live one next time.”
A few months later, Venables got a call from his buddy about Beal.
"I’m going to send you this tape,” he said. "Just let me know what level you think he might be able to play.”
Venables watched two or three plays, then called in
Bob Stoops. The OU head coach verbalized what Venables was thinking.
"Can we get him?” Stoops said.
Beal hadn’t tested well and didn’t have great times, but from the game video, it was clear that he could play. The Sooners backed off a big-time prospect that they were recruiting and went after Beal instead.
"It’s funny how things work,” Venables said.
During his early days as a Sooner, Beal realized he wasn’t the most physically gifted player. He was on his way to becoming 6-foot-3 and 261 pounds, but he knew he had to compensate for the size and the speed that he lacked.
He found his edge in the film room.
"You play a whole lot faster if you know what’s coming,” Beal said, "so throughout the week, you watch as much film as you can, you study your opponent as much as you can. You treat it like another class, and you study.
"The test is on Saturday.”
He first saw evidence that his preparation was paying off against
Missouri when he was a redshirt freshman. He sacked Tiger quarterback
Chase Daniel on a bootleg play that he knew was coming.
"It was then I was like, ‘Hey, this studying film works,’” Beal said. "I kind of had an epiphany.”
He’s been studying opponents ever since.
Ditto for sacking them.
His teammate, linemate and roommate
Gerald McCoy marvels at Beal.
"He knows what angles to take, what’s coming at him, when to do this, when to do that,” the Sooner All-American said. "I don’t know if he studies more or he just picks it up faster than most people. That way, he can move on to the next thing. He’s taking in so much, but he picks it up so fast.
"He gets it done.”
A couple weeks ago against
Tulsa, Beal notched three sacks.
Then last week at
Miami, he did the same thing again.
Turns out, no Sooner has ever logged three sacks in a game twice in the same season — and Beal accomplished the feat in back-to-back games.
"Six sacks in two games?” Beal said. "That was just unreal.”
He shook his head.
"But I try not to think about it. It’s in the past. You need to move forward. You need to try to play that way every week.”
Jeremy Beal learned a long time ago that he wouldn’t survive by standing still or looking backward. He had to keep going. He had to keep fighting.
It’s given him an edge.
It’s also given him quite a bite.
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