Oklahoma football: Lincoln Riley a magnet for QB transfers

The last two Oklahoma football starting quarterbacks did not begin their college careers at OU, but that is where it ended, and for the better for all concerned.

With the announcement by former Alabama quarterback Jalen Hurts on Wednesday that he is taking his talents to Oklahoma next season under the NCAA graduate transfer rule, it appears that he will become the third consecutive transferee to take over the starting QB duties for the Sooners.

The arrival of all three spans the time since 35-year-old Lincoln Riley has been at Oklahoma. Riley, one of the most innovative and productive offensive maestros in the college game, has worked with two starting QBs in the two seasons he has served as head coach of the Sooners — Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray — and both ended up winning the Heisman Trophy as field generals for college football’s No. 1 offense. Both also share the distinction of not being home-grown Sooner recruits.

Mayfield played his freshman season at Texas Tech before transferring to Oklahoma, where he walked on to the football program. The Austin, Texas, native was forced to sit out the 2014 season under NCAA transfer rules, but won the OU starting quarterback job in 2015 and the rest is history.

Murray signed with Texas A&M out of high school in Allen, Texas, where he was the Gatorade National Player of the Year. He played in eight games his freshman season at A&M, mostly as a backup, and after the season made the decision to transfer to Oklahoma. Murray came to OU as a dual-sport star in baseball and football. He backed up Mayfield in Mayfield’s Heisman-winning season in 2017, and when it was his turn to shine on the gridiron, Murray raised the bar on his predecessor’s record-setting 2017 season.

The Sooner football program has found a winning formula in welcoming in quarterback transfers, arguably the most important position on the field, and the common denominator in that approach, insofar as Oklahoma football is concerned, is Riley.

Oklahoma Sooners Football

The second-year Sooner head coach has turned the OU quarterback position into a national treasure. Not only have his two OU quarterback pupils gone out and won college football most prestigious individual honor, but it has also placed them in prime position to be a high first-round selection in the NFL Draft.

Mayfield, of course, was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft and just completed an outstanding rookie season with the previously hapless Cleveland Browns.

Murray is another story. Earlier this year, he was the ninth overall player selected in the 2018 MLB Draft, signing a $4.7 million bonus contract with the Oakland A’s. On Monday this week he declared for the NFL Draft, and their is wide speculation that he will go in the first 10 picks in the draft and even potentially as the No. 1 pick.

You have to believe that Jalen Hurts is well aware of all of this and that it heavily factored into his decision to come to Oklahoma for his final season of eligibility. Why wouldn’t he elect to come to another one of college football’s blueblood programs — a football school historically on a par with Alabama — and one with a ready-made high-octane offense loaded with talented playmakers?

And also don’t forget that Hurts hails from Houston, and OU affords him an opportunity to finish out his college career playing much closer to home.

With the well-experienced, former Alabama quarterback at the helm for the Sooners, even if for just a single season, it will enable incoming five-star recruit Spencer Rattler, rated by many as the No. 1 QB recruit in the 2019 class, to learn from the veteran college signal-caller Hurts and become better acclimated into the college game and Riley’s dynamic offensive system before he has to step into the primary role.

It’s a win-win for Hurts as well as for the Sooners, who automatically become a prime College Football Playoff contender in their quest to make a Playoff appearance for a fourth time in what will become the six-year history of that postseason championship format.

You can now check off the box suggesting a quarterback issue for Oklahoma looking ahead to the 2019 season and the post-Mayfield-Murray era of Sooner football.