Oklahoma football: Sooners’ NFL Draft pipeline one of college football’s best
By Chip Rouse
This week marks the annual NFL Draft. This will be the 86th year for the draft, and Oklahoma football has been a regular participant virtually every year.
The 2021 NFL Draft will begin on Thursday and run for seven rounds over three days, ending on Saturday. Unlike last year’s draft, which was held virtually from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s basement, this year the event will be held outdoors in Cleveland, Ohio.
Four Sooners were selected in last year’s draft, two coming in the opening round. Wide receiver CeeDee Lamb was a first-round selection of the Dallas Cowboys, the 17th player selected overall, and he was joined six selections later when the Los Angeles Chargers picked linebacker Kenneth Murray with the 23rd overall pick.
Quarterback Jalen Hurts was taken in the second round by the Philadelphia Eagles and defensive tackle Neville Gallimore was a third-round selection by Dallas.
Who from Oklahoma will be selected in 2021 NFL Draft?
Oklahoma has had at least four players taken in the last 13 consecutive NFL Drafts, and at least one first-round selection 12 times since 2000.
The Sooners will probably have at least three players selected in this year’s draft, possibly four and a long-shot chance of five at the most. Unless something very unexpected happens, there will be no first-round picks from OU this time around.
The highest-rated pro prospects from Oklahoma in the 2021 NFL Draft are defensive end Ronnie Perkins and All-American center Creed Humphrey. Most mock drafts have both players going in the second round, somewhere between the 40th and 60th overall picks.
The former Sooner with the third best chance of being selected in this year’s draft is running back Rhamondre Stevenson. Oklahoma’s leading rusher last season greatly improved his draft stock with three game of better than 100-yards over the final six games, including 186 yards and an average of 10.3 yards per carry in the Sooners Cotton Bowl win over a good Florida team.
ESPN college football analyst Mel Kiper has Stevenson as the seventh best running back available in the draft, but running backs don’t typically don’t get picked as high as other skill-position players unless they are truly exceptional. Stevenson is projected as a fifth or sixth-round selection.
Former Oklahoma cornerback Tre Brown has received some NFL interest and could land as a sixth- or seventh-round pick.
A couple of other players from OU — defensive back Tre Norwood and offensive lineman Adrian Ealy — have an outside shot of hearing their name called before all seven rounds of the 2021 NFL Draft are concluded on Saturday afternoon. If not, they will become undrafted free agents and free to sign with any NFL team.
Oklahoma ranks 4th all-time in NFL Draft selections
A total of 397 Oklahoma Sooners have been selected since the first NFL Draft was held in 1936. That is the fourth most all-time among college teams, according to drafthistory.com, trailing only Notre Dame and USC, both with 511 and Ohio State with 463.
Forty-seven former Sooners have been selected in the first round, including five No. 1 overall picks: Lee Roy Selmon (1976), Billy Sims (1980), Sam Bradford (2010), Baker Mayfield (2018), and Kyler Murray (2019) . OU is one of just two schools to have players selected No. 1 overall in the NFL Draft in consecutive years (Mayfield in 2018 and Murray in 2019), but the only one to have quarterbacks selected No. 1 in back-to-back year.
Oklahoma’s best year in terms of the number of players selected in the NFL Draft was 1988, when 13 Sooners were taken, including two first-rounders: DB Rickey Dixon (fifth overall) and TE Keith Jackson (13th overall).
The most memorable year of the NFL Draft insofar as OU football history is concerned was in 2010. That year three of the top four players selected were from Oklahoma: No. 1, QB Sam Bradford; No. 2, Ndamukong Suh of Nebraska; No. 3, DL Gerald McCoy, and No. 4 OT Trent Williams. TE Jermaine Gresham also was selected in the first round in 2010, 21st overall.
According to NFL.com, Oklahoma is tied for third among all college teams in the number of wide receivers selected all-time (36) in the NFL Draft, ninth for tight ends (13), tied for eighth for defensive linemen (39), tied for sixth for linebackers (39) and sixth all-time for defensive backs (39).