Oklahoma Football: Sooners Tied for 10th With Most Active NFL Players
By Chip Rouse
During Bob Stoops’ 18 seasons at the head of Oklahoma football, 134 of his players have gone on to play in the NFL.
Seventy-nine of those players made their way to the next level as NFL draft selections. In the history of the draft, 377 former Sooners have become property of NFL teams through that process, the fourth most of any school.
Forty-three times, an Oklahoma player has been selected in the opening round and three times as the No. 1 overall pick (defensive tackle Lee Roy Selmon in 1976, running back Billy Sims two years later and quarterback Sam Bradford in 2009; Sims and Bradford also won the Heisman Trophy, awarded to college football’s most outstanding player).
Bradford, who made his 2016 debut as the starting quarterback with his new team, the Minnesota Vikings, on Sunday night, is one of 30 former Sooners who are currently active in the NFL, along with his former Oklahoma teammate Adrian Peterson. Peterson, the most valuable player in the NFL in 2012 and three-time NFL rushing leader, was a first-round draft pick of the Vikings, taken seventh overall in 2007.
With 30 active players on NFL rosters. Oklahoma is tied with four other schools for 10th place among colleges with the most active NFL players, according to data compiled by the NCAA.
Alabama leads in that category with 43 active players in the NFL, followed by LSU (42), Florida State (41), Ohio State (39), Florida (38), Georgia (36), Clemson (32), Auburn (31) and Penn State (30). If you’re counting, that’s five SEC schools in the top 10.
Texas is the closest Big 12 school to Oklahoma with 28 players currently on active NFL rosters.
Bradford and Peterson were the subjects of the highlight and lowlight of the Vikings’ 17-14 win over the Green Bay Packers on Sunday. Bradford set a team record for passing yards in a Minnesota debut, completing 22 of 31 passes for 286 yards and two touchdowns. Peterson, on the other hand, was held to just 19 rushing yards on 12 carries before leaving the game in the third quarter with was later reported to be a torn meniscus in his knee.
Other former Sooners who produced notable numbers in NFL action over the weekend included DeMarco Murray, who ran for 89 yards and caught a team-high seven passes for 56 additional yards in a 16-15 victory for the Tennessee Titans over the Detroit Lions.
Sterling Shepard, who is in his rookie season with the New York Giants caught his first NFL touchdown pass in the season-opening weekend, and this past weekend he pulled in a career-high eight targets from Giant quarterback Eli Manning.
A teammate of Shepard’s at Oklahoma, Kenny Stills, hauled in two passes for 39 yards for the Miami Dolphins, including a 24-yard touchdown catch. Blake Bell, in his second season with the San Francisco 49ers at tight end, caught a pass in the 49ers loss to Carolina in Week 2.
On the defensive side, Arizona defensive back and former OU safety Tony Jefferson recorded a team-high 11 tackles and also recovered a fumble in the Cardinals’ 40-7 win over Tampa Bay.