Michigan thought it had its next star LB locked in until it didn’t. Cole Sullivan, instead of returning to Ann Arbor, packed his bags for Norman after signing with Oklahoma in January. Behind that decision is a pitch that only the Sooners’ head coach, Brent Venables, can pull off, and it looks like the former Wolverine LB fell for the “linebacker doctor.”
“Part of the team under coach Venables, it was kind of funny,” Cole Sullivan said. “And the first time I met him, he called himself the linebacker doctor. He said, ‘If you’re sick, you go to some random doctor you never heard of, or you go to a doctor that specializes and whatever is wrong with you.’ And I was like, ‘Well, you want to go to the specialist.’ And he’s like, ‘Well, I’m the linebacker doctor. That was one of his pitches to me. So that was pretty funny.”
In an era dominated by NIL bidding wars and flashy facility tours, Venables’ medical analogy was decidedly old-school and a pitch that gives importance to development first. Instead of selling empty promises, the Sooners’ head coach offered a reality check and an honest assessment of what the young linebacker was missing…