Transfer Talk: What Oklahoma Will Receive in LB Kendal Daniels
Whatever Brent Venables needs Kendal Daniels to provide as Oklahoma’s cheetah linebacker in 2025, Daniels will have already done it.
Range as a safety? Two years experience there. Run fits? A full year doing that. Rushing the passer? Absolutely.
Variety and productivity are two words that best describe Daniels’ three seasons at Oklahoma State, and four years after flirting heavily with OU in the recruiting process, Daniels is finally a Sooner.
Daniels, the consensus No. 1 high school player in Oklahoma in the class of 2021, originally wanted to go to OU out of Beggs High School near Tulsa. But whatever conversations he had with then-defensive coordinator Alex Grinch always seemed to end with him playing linebacker in Norman. So Daniels signed with Texas A&M. After a coaching change in College Station, Daniels got out of his letter of intent and signed with OSU instead.
After three big seasons in Stillwater, Daniels now wears the Crimson and Cream — and he’s the perfect fit in Venables’ hybrid linebacker position that is asked to do so many different things on the football field.
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“I think that he was definitely a kid that liked the idea of of staying close to home, staying in his home state,” said Scott Wright, who covers OSU for The Oklahoman. “So when those programs, OU and OSU, were involved, I think it piqued his interest a little bit more so. And … I could see the idea of him, when he was 185 (pounds) coming out of Beggs, thinking that he needed to be a safety at that point. I think it took him some time. And I don’t know that anybody really projected that he was necessarily gonna blossom into this 240-pound beast that he’s become physically. So I think it took him some time to understand that, ‘Yeah, I’m heading toward being a linebacker eventually.’ ”
Versatility was Daniels’ calling card at OSU. He earned Freshman All-America honors and was the Big 12 Defensive Freshman of the Year as a redshirt freshman safety in 2022, and in 2024 he posted career-highs of 10.5 tackles for loss and 6.5 quarterback sacks as a linebacker in 2024.
Although OSU’s defense overall was a train wreck last year as the Cowboys fell to 3-9 on the season, Daniels led the Cowboys with 715 defensive snaps, according to Pro Football Focus. His PFF grades were all solid, but his pass rush grade of 71.6 stood out as he totaled 64 tackles.
Daniels played 931 defensive snaps in 2023, when he posted a career-high 105 tackles. As a redshirt freshman, he played 652 defensive snaps and made 71 stops.
