Five takeaways from Oklahoma's updated roster ahead of fall camp

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6 days ago

The Oklahoma Sooners released an updated roster for the 2025 season this week ahead of fall camp. With six weeks remaining until Week 1, when OU will take on Illinois State out of the Football Championship Subdivision, the potential exists for minor things to change.
However, for the most part, OU's current roster is the one it will take into a pivotal 2025 campaign, one that is crucial for the program's future and the future of coach Brent Venables.
The Sooners went 6-7 in Venables' third year at the helm in 2024. That included a 2-6 record in the Southeastern Conference in Year 1 in the new league. Obviously, that isn't close to being good enough at a program used to playing for conference and national championships.
Needless to say, things needed to change in a major way. New general manager Jim Nagy is putting his fingerprints on the program with new front office hires, and coaching staff changes have occurred at key spots since late November. That doesn't even get into the roster changes during the offseason.
So today, we'll take a closer look at the five biggest takeaways from Oklahoma's updated roster heading into fall camp for the 2025 season.
1. Roster turnover
At the close of the regular season last year, Oklahoma had 127 players on the roster.
It lost 61 of them to the transfer portal, the NFL draft, the end of eligibility or walk-on departures. The Sooners added 45 players via high school recruiting, the transfer portal or walk-ons. They returned 66 players from the '24 squad. That leaves them with 111 players in July. Oklahoma has 54 offensive players, 50 defensive players and seven special teams players. The lower overall number is due to changes to the rules regarding how many players each team can have on its roster. Some players are being grandfathered in due to the recent House settlement, which will eventually create a roster limit of 105 players.
Even in today's tumultuous world of college football, where name, image and likeness licensing and the transfer portal induced changes run rampant, that's pretty heavy turnover for the Sooners.
But that turnover may not be a bad thing. An overall record under .500 again in 2024 and a .250 winning percentage in the SEC is a far cry from the standard that has been set in Norman. There's plenty of new blood, and that's a good thing.
Another big-picture indicator of OU's roster churn: Only one player remains on the 2025 roster that was on Lincoln Riley's final roster in 2021. That's veteran reserve wide receiver Major Melson, a sixth-year senior this year. This is truly a Brent Venables team in every way now.
2. Spring additions
The Sooners had an eventful spring, as there are plenty of new faces on the roster that weren't a part of spring ball in Norman.
Offensively, the Sooners added running back Jaydn Ott, offensive lineman Jake Maikkula, wide receiver Jer'Michael Carter and quarterback Whitt Newbauer. Ott is the headliner of that group.
Defensively, OU brought in defensive lineman Siolaa Lolohea and linebacker Reed DeQuasie via the transfer portal. The Sooners also added some late enrollees in defensive lineman C.J. Nickson and linebackers Marcus James, Elgee Webster and Barrett Travis. Additionally, Oklahoma signed former UTSA kicker Tate Sandell, who has a chance to start right away at the position.
However, the Sooners also lost pieces this spring. Tight end Davon Mitchell, defensive backs Mykel Patterson-McDonald and Peter Schuh, running backs Sam Franklin and Gavin Sawchuk, and offensive lineman Josh Aisosa entered the transfer portal. Defensive back Jocelyn Malaska initially entered the spring portal but withdrew and remains on the OU roster.
Oklahoma reshuffled its depth pieces at quarterback. Cole Gonzales, who signed with the Sooners in the winter portal window and went through spring ball with OU, reentered the portal in the spring and landed with Pitt. Oklahoma gained a portal commitment from Gavin Frakes, but he never signed with the Sooners and ended up at Northwestern. That leaves John Mateer, Michael Hawkins Jr., Whitt Newbauer and Jett Niu as the four quarterbacks the Sooners bring into the 2025 season.
3. There's the beef
Part of Venables' mission when he took over for Riley was to get the defense back on track. But the mission was also to get the Sooners ready for the SEC, a league in which trench warfare is the name of the game.
One spot where it's obvious the philosophy has changed is defensive tackle. Charlie S, who covers the Sooners for The Football Brainiacs, illustrated that in a recent post on X (formerly Twitter).
Oklahoma's heaviest defensive tackle in 2020, the second-to-last year under Riley and former defensive coordinator Alex Grinch, weighed 297 pounds. In 2025, the Sooners have seven DTs heavier than that, four years into the Venables era. That had to happen or Oklahoma was going to get beaten up physically at the point of attack in the SEC.
Furthermore, defensive tackle looks like it'll be one of OU's biggest strengths again in 2025. The group of Jayden Jackson, Damonic Williams, Gracen Halton and David Stone wants to push people around at the line of scrimmage this year.
4. Looking for offensive stars
Quarterback John Mateer and running back Jaydn Ott are the two biggest names on OU's revamped offense this year, and both were portal additions. But the portal also hit the Sooners hard when it came to some big offensive names, so Oklahoma is looking for other players to step up in Ben Arbuckle's offense.
The Sooners are no strangers to having superstars on offense, especially since 1999. In the last 26 seasons, they've had four Heisman Trophy winners (Jason White, Sam Bradford, Baker Mayfield, and Kyler Murray) and four other players who were Heisman finalists, but didn't win the award (Josh Heupel, Adrian Peterson, Dede Westbrook, and Jalen Hurts). Additionally, Oklahoma has had plenty of other All-America and all-conference players who helped put points on the board in bunches. But the 2025 Sooners are still searching for their standouts on the offensive side of the ball next to their new backfield tandem.
Behind Ott, the Sooners would love to get a breakout season from one of their homegrown running backs like Jovantae Barnes, Xavier Robinson or Taylor Tatum. None will be expected to carry the load, but a backup to take some of the load off the Cal transfer would certainly help.
When it comes to pass-catchers, wide receiver Deion Burks is a guy to watch if he can stay healthy. The same goes for Jayden Gibson and Javonnie Gibson, who could unlock the offense if they perform well. Jer'Michael Carter's addition in the spring gives OU another big body who could make some noise in the red zone. At tight end, the Sooners would love Will Huggins or Carson Kent to give the offense a reliable option there.
Along the offensive line, Troy Everett and Derek Simmons are veterans for Bill Bedenbaugh to lean on at center and right tackle, but there are plenty of intriguing options at all five positions for the veteran coach.
OU's backfield duo figures to be great this year. But it'll need help to get the job done.
5. Time to shine for '22 class
Last year on defense, it was Oklahoma's standouts from the 2021 recruiting class that led the way. The trio of Danny Stutsman, Billy Bowman Jr. and Ethan Downs were the big name leaders for Venables heading into the SEC.
With those players off to the NFL, the buck has been passed to the remaining members of the 2022 recruiting class, Venables' first as a coach. Most of the key players remaining are defensive stalwarts, but the Sooners do return running back Jovantae Barnes, wide receiver Jayden Gibson, tight ends Kaden Helms and Jaren Kanak and offensive linemen Jacob Sexton and Jake Taylor.
But with all that production and leadership lost defensively, it's time for Venables' 2022 class to take the reins. Defensive linemen Gracen Halton and R Mason Thomas, linebackers Kip Lewis and Kobie McKinzie and defensive backs Robert Spears-Jennings and Gentry Williams look like they're up to the task; each decided to stay in Norman this offseason.
Once upon a time, Oklahoma was built on punishing, nasty defenses. The Sooners are getting back to that under Venables, who hopes he's made the right moves to get the offense back up to snuff heading into a very important 2025 season.
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This article originally appeared on Sooners Wire: Five takeaways from Sooners latest roster updates