As an Oklahoma Sooners football fan, I spend quite a bit of time lamenting OU's defense. 

I spend what time I don't use yelling at Mike Stoops in much the same way as fans of most other programs: swooning over the defenses at programs like Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson, LSU, and Georgia, wishing my school would decide to go steady with a different defensive coordinator.

Now, to be sure, being a defensive coordinator in the 21st century is no easy task. But it ain’t all that hard either.

What Dave Aranda has been able to do at LSU is brilliant. How Buckeyes coordinator Greg Schiano has resurrected his reputation as a coordinator and recruiter has been inspiring to watch. The way Tennessee head coach and defensive mastermind Jeremy Pruitt has remained on the cutting edge of college football has earned him the opportunity to lead a program with a fan base so rabid Lane Kiffin needed to be escorted across state lines.

So, um, congratulations—sorta?

All Georgia head coach Kirby Smart has done is change the way college football defense is played at a base level since rising to supremacy more than a decade ago. And Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables, we’re so sorry. Please take us back.

But, with all of those compliments and well wishes having been handed out, it’s what TCU coach Gary Patterson has done with his 4-2-5 scheme and what Alabama coach Nick Saban has done with his 3-4 scheme that make me wish Lincoln Riley would part ways with Stoops and just let me call the defense.

Like you, I’ve also studied enough badly called games at my school to know when the defensive coordinator isn’t earning his near $1 million salary. I know a good one when I see him too.

The defense Patterson has built at TCU runs on speed and a distinct look that has six men in the box instead of the traditional seven. Saban and Smart modernized the Okie 3-4 defense to keep seven men in the box while adding a defensive back where a linebacker would traditionally be. Turns out, Saban stole the idea from the current overlord of professional football—and his former boss—New England head coach Bill Belichick.

“Well, when I went to Cleveland, everything that Bill Belichick does has some purpose, from what you call blitz to what you call fire-zone front,” Saban told AL.com.

As college football began to take on more of the offensive philosophy of Hal Mumme’s air raid—spread the field, stretch the defense vertically and horizontally—Saban found his strongside linebacker out of position. As he looked closer, he saw the Sam was not only out of position but also out of time. 

The need for a 240-pound run stopper who could grapple with tight ends was gone.

Suddenly, that player needed to be 20-30 pounds lighter, able to run with slot receivers, and tackle just as well as any linebacker on the field. In essence, Saban added a fifth defensive back to what he’s calling a 3-4 but operates like Patterson’s 4-2-5 with slightly different alignments.

We call it the nickel package. Saban calls it winning. 

He invented positions for the kind of player he was looking for called "star" and "money," which aren't terribly different from nickel or dime packages like the ones you and I run in Madden.

You’d be right to call them defensive backs. You’d be wrong to think they think of themselves as defensive backs. Ha-Ha Clinton Dix played star. We called him a safety. Vinnie Sunseri played money. We called him a safety, too.

And this is where Saban’s genius is most apparent.

“When you talk to players, you can say, ‘Look, these linebackers on the team are all going to play money. These DBs on the team are going to learn how to play money,’” Saban said. "Because when it comes to the assignments of the defense, the position is the same. It's just they've got four wideouts in there now, so the linebacker can't cover, so we put another DB in there. That make sense?”

Yeah, coach. It does. 

It also keeps with Belichick’s philosophy of keeping the names in line with the system because it only matters that it makes sense to the kids out there running the defense the way it’s being called. But, more than that, it puts players in position to succeed.

And, in today’s college football? Where three wide receivers and a pass-catching tight end have become normalized? Any defensive coordinator still putting a 250-pound linebacker on the field and asking him to chase speedsters in the slot is courting disaster. 

Just ask Mike Stoops.

RJ Young is a former Oklahoma Sooners football and basketball beat writer, investigative journalist, essayist, novelist, and Ph.D student. His memoir "LET IT BANG" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) hits shelves and earbuds in October. His YouTube channel is fire if you're into storytelling and topics ranging from Baker Mayfield to The Rock's early wrestling career to this one time when a guy got a little too interested in RJ's "Black Panther" cup at a urinal inside of a movie theater.