Kendal Daniels

● Tall, long athlete — looks like a basketball small forward ● Plays with range to the sideline and when driving down the line ● Strides are both quick and long to be around the football ● Has size and athleticism to be a tight end matchup defender ● Recognizes tendencies and gets a head start (see “coffeehouse” stunt on 2025 Ole Miss tape) ● Open-field tackling improved each game, when studying his 2025 tape chronologically ● Quickly earned respect of his teammates and coaches in Norman (Venables: “Loves his family, his fiancée and his teammates. … He’s a simple guy.”) ● Works his tail off and takes leadership seriously (Daniels: “I’m the gel guy. … Ego is out of the window.”) ● Played on punt coverage as a senior

● Lean, tapered torso; needs to continue developing bulk ● Doesn’t consistently tap into his power or punch above his weight class ● Not a true thumper as a tackler or stack-shed player ● Doesn’t flow with leverage and overruns the ball ● Late to read his keys and trigger as a box player ● Feels route development but doesn’t always react on time

A one-year starter at Oklahoma, Daniels played the “Cheetah” position in head coach Brent Venables’ scheme. He was a safety for his first three college seasons before moving to linebacker at Oklahoma State in 2024, then to a hybrid linebacker-safety-rusher role with the Sooners in 2025 (while playing for his fourth different defensive coordinator). Despite all of that shifting around, he was consistently productive in college and had almost 300 career tackles. Daniels is a long, versatile athlete with experience all over the field. He covers a ton of ground and plays sound football as a gap run defender, whether as a force player or alley runner. However, he tends to play with tunnel vision and can be inconsistent sifting through traffic. Offensive linemen get on him fast when he is in the box, leaving him stuck on contact. Overall, Daniels is a good-looking athlete with the range and movement skills to make plays at different levels of the field. Though some teams see him as a tweener, others believe he can provide value on subpackages and special teams. 481 Back to table of contents -- 485 of 629 --