Oklahoma football: Sooners prominent in Athlon Sports’ All-Transfer Team
By Chip Rouse
The transfer portal has changed the face and nature of college football recruiting, and Oklahoma football has been on both ends of that change this offseason.
College recruiting staffs are no longer combing the country just for top high school talent, but now they are also closely monitoring who becomes available through the transfer pipeline, which has literally exploded over the past couple of years.
First put in place in the fall of 2018, the transfer portal is the equivalent of free-agency in college sports. In the case of college football, on a one time basis players are allowed to transfer to another school and have immediate eligibility. In other words, they do not have to sit out a year before they are eligible to play, which was a rule initially established as a deterrent to having players transfer to another school, for whatever reason, and play immediately.
It has become increasingly prominent the past few years for players who have already graduated and still have a year or two of eligibility remaining to leave one program and play a final year with another school. Jalen Hurts, who transferred from Alabama, and wide receiver Jeff Badet, who played at OU in 2017 after a successful career at Penn State, are prime examples of this benefiting the Sooners in recent seasons.
This offseason alone, between the pandemic-altered 2020 season and the forthcoming 2021 season, Oklahoma has been one of the more active schools in transfer portal activity, with 17 former Sooners electing to leave the program, while eight others transferred in to play at Oklahoma. For the complete list, you can click here.
Even though the net loss was 17, the eight players Lincoln Riley and the Sooners are gaining could well prove to be an overall benefit for OU going forward.
In its 2021 College Football preview issue, Athlon Sports has come up with a 2021 Preseason All-Transfer Team. Four Oklahoma players — two incoming and two outgoing — are represented on the All-Transfer offensive unit.
Two Tennessee transfers, running back Eric Gray and offensive lineman Wanya Morris, will don the crimson and cream in 2021.
Transferring out of Oklahoma and making the Athlon All-Transfer team are wide receiver Charleston Rambo and tight end Grant Calcaterra. Calcalterra had announced his retirement from football after the 2019 season after suffering a series of concussions, but changed his mind during the 2020 season, electing to leave Norman and transfer to SMU. Rambo is headed to Miami (Florida).
The Sooners have also added wide receiver Mike Woods from Arkansas, defensive back Key Lawrence from Tennessee, quarterback Micah Bowens from Penn State, offensive lineman Robert Congel from Arizona, Josh Plaster, a kicker/punter from Arizona State, and just this past week picked up running back Kevontre “Tre” Bradford from LSU.