‘Oklahomas Cornerback Will Come Back in 2024 for His Senior Year
A significant component of Brent Venables’ jigsaw has chosen to come back for the 2024 campaign. Woodi Washington, a three-year starter and fifth-year senior cornerback, plans to use his COVID year to return to Oklahoma football in 2024. On social media Tuesday night, he made the announcement.
Washington, a native of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, was the starting cornerback for the Sooners in Brent Venables’ redesigned defense, playing 851 snaps this season and 889 previous season. He defers the NFL Draft in favor of staying at Oklahoma for the upcoming season, joining fellow impact starters Danny Stutsman and Billy Bowman in doing so. In his OU career, Washington has played 2,587 snaps. He first appeared in the Peach Bowl in 2019 as a true freshman, coming off the bench. After a strong showing against Texas in the middle of the 2020 regular season, he was promoted to the starting lineup. Copyright ABG-SI LLC. All rights reserved. SPORTS ILLUSTRATED is a registered trademark of ABG-SI LLC.
Leading cornerback Woody Washington said on Tuesday night that he will return in 2024, providing Oklahoma’s secondary with even more positive news.
Washington, a senior redshirt, posted a graphic on social media with the words “run it back” to announce his choice. Next season, he will be in his sixth year when the Sooners move into the SEC, utilizing the additional year of eligibility that players were granted during the pandemic.
.
For Oklahoma’s secondary, Washington’s decision to return is the second major development. Prominent safety Billy Bowman Jr. declared last month that he would return for his last season. Five important defensive players have committed to play for the Sooners in 2024: defensive tackles Da’Jon Terry and Jacob Lacey, Washington, Bowman, and All-America linebacker Danny Stutsman.
Washington finished the season with 48 total tackles, including 2.5 for a loss, and led Oklahoma with seven pass breakups. This season, he started all 13 of the Sooners’ games at cornerback, offering some stability at the position while the defense contended with a run of injuries at the other cornerback slo.t, forcing the defense to alternate between Gentry Williams and Kani Walker
According to Pro Football Focus, Washington played the most defensive snaps (851 total) of any player in Oklahoma’s defense this season. He was chosen by his teammates as one of the Sooners’ permanent captains for 2023. Despite being targeted on 39 out of 65 passes (60%) by opposing quarterbacks, he ended the year with an overall PFF grade of 72.0. Despite only giving up two scores in the regular season—one against BYU and another against UCF—he caught 39 passes for 592 yards and four touchdowns.
After graduating from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, as a four-star prospect in the past, Washington signed with Oklahoma in the 2019 class that was ranked sixth in the country by the 247Sports Composite team rankings. During that recruiting cycle, the 5-foot-11, 192-pound player was ranked as the No. 21 cornerback and the No. 181 overall talent in the class. In 2019, he played in four games while wearing a redshirt during his rookie season with the Sooners. Over the next two years, he made 16 appearances and started five games at cornerback in 2020 and 2021. In 2022, as a redshirt junior, he took the field for the Sooners and started all 13 games.
Leave a Reply