The Oklahoma football Sooners have long been known as one of the premier programs in the country for sending players to the NFL and having them succeed at the next level.
OU had seven players chosen in the 2022 NFL Draft. LB Nik Bonitto and S Delarrin Turner-Yell are headed to the Denver Broncos. DT Perrion Winfrey, WR Michael Woods and DT Isaiah Thomas were all selected by the Cleveland Browns. Brian Asamoah is now a Minnesota Viking, and OT Marquis Hayes is joining the Arizona Cardinals.
In addition, the Sooners had several players sign with teams as undrafted free agents. RB Kennedy Brooks signed with the Philadelphia Eagles, H-back/TE Jeremiah Hall signed with the New York Giants, OT Tyrese Robinson agreed to terms with the Washington Commanders and DL LaRon Stokes did the same with the Cardinals.
In all, Oklahoma has had 409 players selected in the NFL Draft since the process was introduced in 1936. But how does this Oklahoma draft class compare to past seasons?
The Sooners have had five players chosen with the No. 1
overall pick in the history of the NFL Draft: Lee Roy Selmon (1976), Billy Sims (1980), Sam Bradford (2010), Baker Mayfield (2018) and Kyler Murray (2019). OU is tied with Notre Dame, USC and Georgia for the most players selected first overall.
Before the 2021 season, Oklahoma was projected to have multiple first-round draft choices last weekend. But Spencer Rattler didn’t have the year he expected to have, and players like Bonitto and Winfrey didn’t meet projected expectations on defense. The Sooners’ seven draftees is the most since 2019, when eight Oklahoma players were selected.
OU’s first round selections since 2016 are: Mayfield, Murray, WRs Marquise Brown and CeeDee Lamb and LB Kenneth Murray. Players like Sterling Shepard, Joe Mixon, Cody Ford, Jalen Hurts, Creed Humphrey and Bonitto all just missed the draft’s first day and were chosen in Round 2.
Oklahoma fans would love to see the program get back to producing first-round players on the defensive side of the ball, as Brent Venables will surely have a chance to do. Kenneth Murray is the only recent Sooner defender to have his name called on night one. When he was drafted in 2020, he was OU’s first first-round defensive player since Gerald McCoy went third overall in the historic 2010 draft.
First-round defensive players chosen during Venables’ tenure (1999-2011) reads like a walk down memory lane for Sooner fans who loved the ferocious OU defenses of the early 2000s. The list includes Roy Williams, Andre Woolfolk, Tommie Harris and McCoy.
Offensively, in addition to the many players already mentioned, guys like Orlando Brown, Mark Andrews and Bobby Evans were Day 2 picks that have panned out well for their NFL squads.
If Oklahoma can continue to produce offensive stars at an elite level and get back to pumping out defensive players into the NFL, like Venables did in his first stint in Norman and at Clemson over the last decade, they should be in decent position to chase down the Alabamas and Georgias of the world, especially with a move to the SEC on the horizon.