Sooners stud who’s been waiting patiently for his time to shine is already doing more than what most anticipated during spring football
Head coach Brent Venables and the Oklahoma Sooners are impressed with James Nesta and are expecting to teach him multiple positions during spring football.
It’s only spring football, and there’s still so long until this team, or any team in the country, plays a meaningful football game. However, it’s incredibly hard not to overreact, or just react at all, to the things we are seeing and hearing at and about spring football practice.
When the social media team for the Sooners posts these clips of players at practice making insane plays, it’s hard not to get excited. That’s all we are seeing, outside of the little time that the media gets to see of practice. We have to, for the most part, go off what we do see and what the coaches say. And if we are doing that, there is one player who has been on the team but is getting a lot of new praise. And, he may even be learning new positions.
Brent Venables loves what he’s seeing from linebacker James Nesta
“He’s very focused,” Venables said of linebacker James Nesta. “So again, that give-a-crap-meter is a big part of all of it, and he’s got a lot — it’s very high for him. And so he’s put a lot of work into learning what to do. We’re going to teach him multiple positions.”
Looking closer at Nesta’s role, the redshirt sophomore is poised for a bigger season than ever before. He’s currently projected as the second-string middle linebacker behind transfer portal LB Cole Sullivan. With Owen Heinecke unlikely to return unless circumstances change, Nesta’s presence becomes even more important. So far, in 15 games with limited action—mostly on special teams—Nesta has totaled six tackles and one tackle for loss.
But, he’s been behind some pretty elite linebackers in guys like Danny Stutsman, Kip Lewis, Kobe McKenzie, Heinecke, and some others that have been pretty good, too. So when Venables is saying Nesta is learning new positions—covering both inside spots and possibly working at weakside or as an edge rusher—it’s because Venables thinks Nesta is too good a football player to just be standing on the sideline—they want to get him on the field as much as possible, but without compromising the rest of the team.
Maybe that’s playing the WLB rather than the MLB, or maybe that’s sending him off the edge, although he doesn’t quite fit the size and frame that Venables likes there. However, you never know with this defense. Nesta has patiently waited for his time, and it appears it could be here very soon.
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