After a Special Freshman Season, Oklahoma DB Peyton Bowen Showing 'Progress and Maturation' (2024)

NORMAN — After a true freshman season in which he received national recognition for stellar play on defense and special teams, Year Two of Oklahoma’s Peyton Bowen Experience is already off to a great start.

Bowen, the Sooners’ fabulous sophom*ore safety, played in all 13 games s a true freshman last season, made two starts and impacted multiple games.

“Yeah he’s just a very highly skilled athlete,” said head coach Brent Venables. “Plays with great confidence.”

That was never more evident than the play he made last week in practice, when he pulled away from coverage of tight end Bauer Sharp on a deep ball over the middle, elevated, extended his right hand and made a leaping, one-handed interception in traffic.

While Bowen’s catch bugged just about everyone’s eyes out for its sheer athletic achievement, for Venables, it went much deeper.

“Peyton had an amazing play yesterday in a scheme that requires a certain technique — it’s not just backpedaling and break on the ball,” Venables said. “It’s a real deceptive kind of scheme, and man, there’s a lot of fundamentals that are critical that you have it down pat. And a year ago, he was pretty inconsistent with that.

“And so a small thing like that is just the progress and the maturation that you want from all of your guys, but sometimes it doesn’t happen fast enough, and yesterday he was able to make a play on a ball that looked like the guy was wide open and just makes an amazing play and shows his skill at catching the football, his ability to judge the football. And not only that, but just go attack it, too, you know, climbing the proverbial ladder.”

Bowen, a 6-foot, 190-pound sophom*ore from Denton, TX, finished last year with 36 total tackles, one tackle for loss (a quarterback sack), one forced fumble and five passes defensed.

But he also played 363 total snaps on defense and 159 snaps on special teams, according to Pro Football Focus.

Just one year after he was named Under Armour All-American and a 5-star recruit, Bowen finished the year a semifinalist for the Shaun Alexander Freshman of the Year Award.

His PFF defensive grade was very good for a freshman — 68.0 overall, 12th among all OU defenders. But his special teams grade was exceptional — 89.2, 65th in the nation, and 10th among players with 100 or more special teams snaps.

Venables said Bowen is just a natural athlete, an instinctive football player with a nose for the game and an innate ability to contribute impactful plays.

Such as last year, when he ad-libbed on a punt return play and saw an unblocked angle — and blocked a punt. He wasn’t supposed to. He just saw the opportunity and took it. He led the nation last year with two punt blocks.

But in 2024, Bowen acknowledges he would like to have fewer punt blocks — and more punt returns.

Bowen was a prodigy at returning punts at Guyer High School. His exploits on runbacks were almost legendary, with multiple touchdowns as a punt returner.

Now he wants a chance to show what he can do in college.

“I’m gonna try to work my hardest to get to that position,” Bowen said. “I’ve just gotta show the coaches that’s something I wanna do and that I can do and I’ve just gotta prove to them day by day I have the ability (to do that).”

“He’s got natural instincts and natural ability to catch the ball under duress,” Venables said, “but also the instincts as a guy with the ball in his hands.”

Bowen has the frame, the quickness and the breakaway speed to do both, but would he prefer to return punts or kickoffs?

“Preferably both,” he said. “Whatever they put me at, though, I’m gonna make the most of my opportunity.”

Meanwhile, Bowen has also likely stepped into a bigger role on the defense as a starting safety next to senior Billy Bowman. He might have to hold off hard-hitting junior Robert Spears-Jennings, but Bowen has been honing his craft all offseason, working on little things that he identified as needing to get better.

“I’d say my angles to approach and tackling, and my footwork with breaking in my man technique to receivers, and my eye discipline looking at the wrong things,” Bowen said. “Now I’m looking at the right things I’m supposed to be looking at, play by play.”

At SEC Media Days in Dallas, Bowman said Bowen was one of the players he’s been happy to take under his wing and mentor.

“I truly believe he has the ability to be more elite than I do,” Bowen said. “He has so much talent in the world. Once everything clicks for him and he kind of grows up more — maybe that’ll happen once I’m gone next year by him realizing, ‘It’s my time now.’ ”

Bowen heard Bowman’s words and was impacted by them.

“I did see his comment,” Bowen said. “That’s just love. That’s the love we’ve got for each other. We’re all brothers at this facility, on this team. We love each other. We’ll fight for each other day by day, die for each other, all of that. Ride-or-dies.

“I’ve grown into the system a lot more and I know what I’m doing way better than last year, so I’m not second-guessing myself and I can trust my instincts and just play ball.”