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Oklahoma football: QBs aren’t only high OU draft picks; how about WRs?

By Chip Rouse

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND - JANUARY 11: Marquise Brown #15 of the Baltimore Ravens runs with the ball during the first half against the Tennessee Titans in the AFC Divisional Playoff game at M&T Bank Stadium on January 11, 2020 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND - JANUARY 11: Marquise Brown #15 of the Baltimore Ravens runs with the ball during the first half against the Tennessee Titans in the AFC Divisional Playoff game at M&T Bank Stadium on January 11, 2020 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images) /
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In the last two NFL Drafts, two Oklahoma football quarterbacks have been the first player selected overall, and you can make that three Sooner quarterbacks drafted No. 1 overall in the last 10 years.

That won’t happen this year, but the OU quarterback last season, Jalen Hurts, is likely to go sometime in the second round of the 2020 draft.

As some like to say, “If there’s smoke, there’s fire.” That time-worn expression could easily apply to top-quality quarterbacks and their receivers.

Since the 2000 NFL Draft, 19 Sooner receivers (14 wide receivers and five tight ends) have been selected in the draft, and most of them have had some success playing at the next level.

Since Baker Mayfield (the No, 1 overall NFL pick in 2018) and Kyler Murray (who followed Mayfield as the No, 1 overall selection a year later) manned the quarterback position at Oklahoma, a wide receiver has been the first or second OU player taken in three of the last four NFL Drafts.

Sterling Shepard was a second-round selection, 40th overall by the New York Giants, in the 2016 draft. The following year, in 2017, Dede Westbrook was taken in the fourth round by the Jacksonville Jaguars, and tight-end Mark Andrews was a third-round selection by the Baltimore Ravens in 2018. All were primary targets of Mayfield while at OU.

Last year, Marquise “Hollywood” Brown joined Murray as a first-round selection, taken 25th overall by the same Ravens team that had picked up Andrews the year before.

And this year, another quality Sooner receiver, CeeDee Lamb, is expected to go high in the draft. The general view is that Lamb could be gone in the first 10 picks in the 2020 draft.

An Oklahoma wide receiver or tight end has been selected in nine of the last 10 NFL Drafts. That says something not only about the quality of the Oklahoma quarterback play under both Lincoln Riley and Bob Stoops before him, but also the quality of the Sooner receiving corps.

In addition to the receivers Oklahoma has delivered to the NFL in the last five years, you can add the following names over the last decade: Jermaine Gresham, Ryan Broyles, James Hanna, Justin Brown, Kenny Stills and Jalen Saunders and Blake Bell (a converted quarterback).

Quarterback “U” for sure, but how about receiver “U”?

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