At the end of the 2019 season, 36 former Oklahoma football players appeared on NFL rosters.
Seven of those 36 former Sooners, plus two 2020 first-round picks from Oklahoma, have been named to an NFL Ultimate All-Big 12 Team selected by a panel of ESPN staff members.
In case you haven’t seen it, ESPN is having some more fun during this downtime during which live sports are still in hiatus because of COVID-19.
A panel of ESPN NFL analysts, college and NFL Nation reporters have been putting together a collection of ultimate all-conference teams. Each all-conference team consists of an all-star, 22-member unit of current NFL players based on their former conference affiliation.
The idea is to assemble the best active NFL players at each offensive and defensive position from Atlantic Coast Conference schools, the Big 12, Big Ten, SEC and Pac-12 and a sixth all-star team made up of top NFL players at each position from non-Power Five schools.
The ESPN panel then ranked the six different “ultimate all-conference” teams based on how they might fare against one another in an ultimate playoff.
The offensive unit for each all-conference team consisted of a quarterback, a running back, two receivers, a tight end, two tackles, two guards, a center and one flex player from any of the skill positions. Similarly, the defensive unit is made up of two interior lineman, two edge rushers, two linebackers, four defensive backs and a flex defensive player from any spot on the defense.
The All-Big 12 team is headlined by quarterback Patrick Mahomes of the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and Texas Tech. Six of the 11 players on the offensive unit are former Oklahoma Sooners. They include running back Joe Mixon (Cincinnati Bengals), wide-receivers Marquise “Hollywood” Brown (Baltimore Ravens) and CeeDee Lamb (2020 draft pick by the Dallas Cowboys) and tight end Mark Andrews (Baltimore Ravens), and offensive tackles Lane Johnson (Philadelphia Eagles) and Trent Williams (San Francisco 49ers).
Three other Sooners are on ESPN’s All-Big 12 defensive unit: defensive tackles Gerald McCoy (Dallas Cowboys) and Jordan Phillips (Arizona Cardinals) and linebacker Kenneth Murray (2020 first-round selection of the Los Angeles Chargers).
A total of nine former Sooners were named to ESPN’s 22-member NFL All-Big 12 Team. No other Big 12 team placed more than three on the team (Texas).
A voting panel of nine ESPN staff members ranked the five Power Five all-conference teams and the one from the non-Power Five all-star team, one through six, based on the question: Which of the six would be best suited to win the Super Bowl in 2020?
For the complete results, you can click here.