5 positions the Oklahoma Sooners should target via the transfer portal
With just one game left to put a bow on the 2023 season, Oklahoma’s vision has widened a bit to prepare for 2024. 2024 is a significant year in the history of Oklahoma football as the Sooners will be moving to the SEC along with the Texas Longhorns.
Oklahoma’s 2023 season is a success after a dismal 2022 campaign where they won just six games. The Sooners have already won 10 games and have shown a lot of growth on and off the field.
Looking at the roster heading into the new calendar year, it’s easy to see that while Oklahoma got better, they will have some holes they must address immediately.
And that’s where the transfer portal comes in.
Oklahoma could lose significant pieces on the offensive and defensive lines and at quarterback. They could also add talent to the secondary and the linebacker unit.
This year, they benefitted from the transfer portal by landing Walter Rouse from Stanford, a rock-solid left tackle who routinely posted some of the best pass-blocking grades on the team, per Pro Football Focus. Da’Jon Terry was a foundational piece of a defense that took a step forward.
Other names like Andrel Anthony, Dasan McCullough, and Reggie Pearson made immediate impacts in their first year with the Sooners.
The transfer portal doesn’t officially open until Dec. 4, but players nationwide have begun announcing their plans to enter the portal.
Here’s a look at five positions the Sooners could target in the transfer portal.
Offensive Line
Whether you want to put the offensive line as 1A or 1B, hitting the transfer portal for both sides of the trenches is most important to Oklahoma.
We’ll start on the offensive side, though, for now. For the second season in a row, Oklahoma will lose its starting tackles.
Walter Rouse, a transfer portal addition from Stanford, was only a one-year rental. He improved his draft stock and will use the final game and the winter to prepare himself for the NFL.
Tyler Guyton was on NFL radars before the season began and was considered a top-50 prospect. He performed admirably this season and is still trending to be a top 50 or 75 prospect. There’s no reason to believe he will come back.
Andrew Raym could also leave and thought about it briefly last offseason. Guard McKade Mettauer, who still has a COVID year remaining, could conceivably come back, but for the sake of this, we’ll assume he doesn’t. That leaves true freshman Cayden Green as the lone returnee after he took the left guard job and never gave it back.
That’s four spots open on the offensive line heading into the SEC.
Jacob Sexton, the team’s first tackle right off the bench, is an impressive sophomore who got better with more reps. Sexton started the last three games of the season and will take over one of the tackle spots.
Troy Everett, Nate Anderson, or Josh Bates could take over at center.
At right guard, Savion Byrd or Jake Taylor could battle it out in the offseason.
That still leaves a tackle spot open. And what about depth off the bench? With such a clear need, Oklahoma can land a tackle and maybe an interior offensive lineman from the portal, should they pursue it.
Defensive Line
Oklahoma’s defensive line had a much better year from top to bottom than in 2022, and the transfer portal was at the center.
Rondell Bothroyd, Da’Jon Terry, and Davon Sears were three defensive linemen the Sooners brought in before the season which gave them a boost.
Bothroyd is set to move on to the NFL, while Terry could come back or pursue professional opportunities himself. Losing Terry and Isaiah Coe creates a massive hole in the interior of the Sooners’ defense.
Five-star defensive tackle David Stone will be in the rotation next year, but expecting a freshman defensive lineman to fix everything is setting a team up for failure. The Sooners also need bodies on top of quality as well. They don’t have the quality depth necessary. As it looks to shake out, don’t be surprised if Oklahoma doesn’t bring in three or four defensive linemen from the portal, much like they did last year.
Secondary
Oklahoma is flush with youngsters at the cornerback position. Gentry Williams, Kani Walker, Makari Vickers, Jasiah Wagoner, Kendel Dolby, and Jacobe Johnson played in their first or second full college football seasons this year.
That’s a lot of guys who still are relatively green.
For the ones like Walker and Williams, they played sparingly last year, so in reality, this year was their first season of extended college football action.
Senior cornerback Woodi Washington is likely to leave, which means the Sooners will have a cornerback position open. If Gentry Williams can find a way to stay healthy, he’s an easy decision to pencil in at one corner spot. The other spot is up for grabs.
We anticipate the young corners like Johnson, Vickers, and Walker competing to start, but there’s reason to believe the Sooners could add a cornerback with experience from the portal, too.
At safety, the possibility of losing Billy Bowman is massive. Oklahoma will try and convince him to come back for one more year, improve his stock, and possibly be a first-rounder in the 2025 NFL Draft. However, if he opts to leave college now, it’s hard to blame him with the run he’s been on since the UCF game.
If he leaves, along with Key Lawrence and/or Reggie Pearson opting for professional opportunities, the Sooners are down three safeties.
Peyton Bowen feels like a lock to start next year no matter what, but where is the depth and playmaking you lose from the losses of Bowman, Lawrence, and Pearson? There are young safeties on the roster, like Robert Spears-Jennings, who showed promise in his first extended action. However, an older, proven presence would be beneficial.
Kicker
Kicking was an issue this year. Let’s be frank about that. It simply was not good enough.
Zach Schmit currently sits at 70 percent for the season. This comes on the heels of him finishing at just 67 percent last year in his first full year as the placekicker.
Those percentages aren’t good enough and he couldn’t be relied upon to hit from 30 to 49 as the season wore on.
That’s a significant issue.
Whether they pull a kicker from the portal or not, Oklahoma should at least consider the possibility and look at what kickers become available.
Tight End
Tight end may have been the worst position group on the team this season. They were inconsistent blockers. They added very little to the passing game. Injuries to Kaden Helms and Jason Llewellyn affected the development of that group. But the production, talent, and depth weren’t up to the standards that people have come to expect from Oklahoma tight ends.
Four-star commit Davon Mitchell could alleviate the talent concerns, but relying on freshmen is a tall task.
We expect the Sooners to pull at least one tight end from the portal. They could even add two. But getting one, pairing them with Davon Mitchell, and getting a guy like Kaden Helms healthy could go a long way.
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