When all was said and done after three days of the 2018 NFL Draft, four Oklahoma football players were selected among 256 total players taken in the draft.
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Four may seem like an inconsequential number, but the truth is, no fewer than four Sooners have been selected in the last 11 years of the NFL Draft. Oklahoma and LSU are the only schools in the country that can make that claim.
Ogbonnia “Obo” Okoronkwo became the fourth and final member of the 2018 Oklahoma NFL Draft class when the Los Angeles Rams traded up to take the OU linebacker with the 23rd pick in the fifth round (160th player selection overall).
Eighty-seven Sooner players have been selected in the draft since 2000. All but one of those seasons was under former OU head coach Bob Stoops.
Baker Mayfield, the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s NFL Draft, was the second Oklahoma quarterback to be selected No. 1 overall since 2010, when Sam Bradford was the top pick, the first-round choice of the St. Louis Rams.
Players who are not drafted by one of the 32 NFL teams still have an opportunity hook on with a team, but they must do so as undrafted free agents. If they are good enough to stick around through NFL rookie mini camp and OTAs (organized team activities), they will be invited to preseason training camp in July and given an opportunity, along with the first-year players who were drafted, to make an NFL roster.
So far, we are aware of 10 former Sooners whose path to a potential NFL career will take the free-agent route. To view the current list, click here.
Mayfield is the fourth Oklahoma player to be taken with the No. 1 overall pick: Lee Roy Selmon in 1976, Billy Sims in 1980, Bradford in 2010 and Mayfield in 2018)
Sooner offensive lineman Orlando Brown and tight end Mark Andrews were selected in the third round of the draft on Saturday. Both players were drafted by the Baltimore Ravens (Brown with the 19th pick in the third round and Andrews with the 22nd pick (86th overall).
In the 83 years the NFL Draft has been conducted (since 1936), at least one Oklahoma player has been selected in 81 of those years.
The largest Sooner draft class was 13 in 1968. Defensive back Ricky Dixon (fifth overall) and tight end Keith Jackson (13th overall) were both first-round selections that year. Eleven OU players were drafted in 1973, As many as 10 OU players were drafted on three other occasions (1975, 1979 and 2005).
Next: Top-10 Sooner first-round NFL Draft picks
In 2010, the year Bradford was the top overall pick, seven Sooners were selected in the draft. Four were first-round selections and three of the four first-rounders were taken with the first four overall picks (Bradford No. 1, DT Gerald McCoy No. 3 and OT Trent Williams No. 4).