I would try the oats again. Conditions at your place just may not have been good for getting a good stand last year. Grain was pretty hit-or-miss last fall/winter. Early planting in my area worked, late planted grain was a disaster. Sometimes, it is just the opposite. Deer will go after the oats.

I had a problem field a few years ago in Jack County. It was in a creek bottom but the adjacent pasture was heavy oak brush and rose a hundred feet or so in elevation. The deer would come down from that brush by the droves as the wheat began to emerge. It never has a chance to tillar. The next year I planted a few drill widths of oats along side of the hill and wheat in the rest of the field. The deer grubbed out that strip of oats like a bunch of hogs. It gave the wheat enough time to get established.