The block, the catches, the comeback: Why Jaren Kanak embodies OU’s grimy run to the CFP
When Jaren Kanak stepped onto the Oklahoma campus as a freshman in the summer of 2022, no one—including Kanak himself—could have scripted the path that would eventually deliver the Sooners back to the College Football Playoff for the first time since 2019.
Kanak spent his first three seasons terrorizing quarterbacks and ball-carriers on Brent Venables’ defense.
Across 38 games, he racked up 103 total tackles, seven tackles for loss, two sacks, two forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries and a defensive touchdown.
Yet in the spring of 2025, something unexpected happened. With Oklahoma searching for playmakers at tight end, Kanak crossed the line of scrimmage—for good.
The 6-foot-2, 233-pound specimen, who had never caught a collegiate pass, agreed to make the rare linebacker-to-tight end conversion.The move paid immediate dividends.
In Oklahoma’s first four games of the 2025 season—wins over Illinois State, Michigan, Auburn, and Temple—Kanak erupted for 18 receptions and 307 yards, leading every tight end in America in receiving yards through September.
His combination of size, reliable hands, and linebacker-level physicality created matchup nightmares for opposing defenses.
Then came the inevitable mid-season lull.
From game five through game eleven, Kanak was held under 30 yards in seven straight contests as SEC defenses adjusted, often bracketing him with safeties or jamming him at the line.
Critics wondered if the early explosion had been a mirage. Kanak never wavered.
On a chilly November day in Norman, with Oklahoma clinging to slim playoff hopes and facing a ferocious LSU defense, the senior reminded everyone why the position change was genius in the first place.
Quarterback John Mateer spent much of the evening under siege, throwing three interceptions..
But when the Sooners absolutely had to have a play, Mateer kept going back to his converted tight end.
Kanak finished with six catches for 54 hard-earned yards, none bigger than the two chain-moving grabs on the game-winning drive that set up Isaiah Sategna III’s 58-yard touchdown dagger.
Even when he wasn’t in the stat sheet, Kanak was making his presence felt.
In the third quarter, he delivered a devastating lead block on a screen pass to Deion Burks that sprung the speedy receiver for a 45-yard touchdown—the kind of play linebackers dream about making on the other side of the ball.
“That block by Jaren was as big as any catch he made all night,” offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle said postgame. “When your tight end is willing to stick his face in there like that, it changes everything for the offense.”
The 17-13 victory over LSU capped a remarkable four-game winning streak to close the regular season—three of them against ranked opponents—that propelled Oklahoma to a 10-2 record, a 6-2 mark in its second SEC campaign, and a coveted spot in the expanded 12-team playoff.
For Kanak, who endured back-to-back 6-7 seasons in 2022 and 2024 along with the 2023 Alamo Bowl team that fell short of expectations, the moment carried extra weight.“It’s pretty surreal,” Kanak said.
“You know what 6-7 feels like. You know the pain of walking off that field wondering what could have been. So when you finally get this opportunity, when you overcome all of that, it just hits different. You appreciate every second of it.”
That perspective—the scars from the lean years—fueled Oklahoma’s late-season surge.
The Sooners won ugly when they had to, leaned on their defense, and found just enough offense in crunch time.
Kanak calls it “grimy football,” and it’s exactly what carried them into December with a chance to play for a national championship.
As he prepares for one final ride in crimson and cream, Jaren Kanak’s story has become the perfect embodiment of Brent Venables’ program: tough, resilient, and unafraid to rewrite the script.
From linebacker to playoff hero in less than a year.
Surreal, indeed.