Oklahoma football: Sooners dominate ESPN’s Top-60 QBs since 2000
By Chip Rouse
The designation of Oklahoma football as the new “Quarterback U” of the college game belies the fact that it’s been that way for the past two decades.
Most experts will tell you that you can’t win a championship at any level of football without outstanding quarterback play.
Yes, the Sooners have had an unprecedented recent run of Heisman-winning and Heisman-worthy quarterbacks, and they may just add another one at the end of the 2021 season, the quarterback performance at Oklahoma has been outstanding since Bob Stoops arrived on the scene back in 1999, more than 20 years ago.
If you want further evidence of that fact, you need not look any further than a recent ESPN+ article by staff writer Bill Connelly ranking the top 60 college quarterbacks of the 2000s.
Six Oklahoma quarterbacks appear in the top 60, headlined by Baker Mayfield, who he ranks No. 1. Three former Sooner QBs are ranked in the top 15 and four in the top 25. No other school had more than two quarterbacks ranked in the top 25.
After Mayfield, ESPN’s top five QBs of the 2000s consist of Cam Newton of Auburn, Vince Young of Texas, Tim Tebow of Florida and LSU’s Joe Burrow.
"“Newton, Young and Burrow had the best seasons,” Connelly writes, “Mayfield has the best career.”"
The Sooners’ Kyle Murray just missed out on the top-5 at No. 7. Sam Bradford ranked 15th and Jalen Hurts comes in at No. 23.
Interestingly, three of the four former Oklahoma quarterbacks who ranked in ESPN’s top 25 did not begin their college careers at OU. They all transferred in from other programs (Mayfield after one season at Texas Tech; Murray played one season at Texas A&M before coming to Oklahoma and Hurts played three seasons at Alabama, including in three consecutive College Football Playoff national championship games.
Other OU quarterbacks who made the ESPN ranking of the top-60 college QBs since 2000 were Jason White (No. 30) and Landry Jones (No. 36). Noticeably absent from the ranking is Josh Heupel, who quarterbacked the Sooners to their seventh and most recent national championship in 2000. Heupel was also the Hesiman runner-up that season, losing out to Chris Weinke of Florida State.
Mayfield’s impressive resume in the three seasons he played at Oklahoma include 14,607 passing yards, 131 touchdown passes and a 69-percent completion rate. He also rushed for 1,083 yards and 21 touchdowns. He led the Sooners to three consecutive Big 12 championships and two College Football Playoff appearances.