Oklahoma football: Report: Austin Kendall to enter NCAA transfer portal

Oklahoma quarterback Austin Kendall has will enter his name into the NCAA transfer portal according to a report from the Tulsa World.

The redshirt sophomore has been in the OU program for three seasons, earning one start against Baylor in 2018. He has spent most of his time backing up a pair of Heisman winners in Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray.

Austin Kendall is  28-of-39 passing for 265 yards and three scores in his limited time under center for Oklahoma.

A Kendall transfer coupled with an expected departure from Kyler Murray would leave the Sooners with only two scholarship quarterbacks going into 2019 in redshirt freshman Tanner Mordecai and incoming true freshman Spencer Rattler.

Austin Kendall was expected to compete for the starting job and a sudden departure could mean a number of things:

More questions than answers

Kendall was in the race to become the starting quarterback all through last summer and into fall camp, sharing snaps with the first-team offense until just before the start of the season. He seemed like the No. 1 candidate to take the job going into 2019.

Does this mean that Kendall didn’t think he could beat out Mordecai (or possibly even Rattler, who won’t arrive until the summer) for the starting position and is choosing to leave?

Could there be hard feelings between Riley and Kendall stemming back to last fall’s battle (surely not, if you realize Murray won the Heisman Trophy)?

Does this put Oklahoma in the market for a transfer quarterback of its own? Possibly Tate Martell of Ohio State or Jalen Hurts of Alabama?

Gil Brandt, who made big waves among Sooner fans earlier in the week when he predicted Murray could return for his senior year, then doubled down on that take on Wednesday, appears to be tripling down on the seemingly unlikely scenario with the news of Kendall’s potential transfer.

A Murray return may be more than most OU fans could possibly hope for with the multi-sport athlete drawing first-round possibilities in the NFL draft, but this does make for an intriguing weekend with the deadline to declare looming on Monday.