Oklahoma football spotlight: Freshman edge rusher Mason Thomas

With a 22-member 2022 recruiting class and 13 additional players picked up from the transfer portal, almost one-third of the Oklahoma football roster for the coming season is made up of newcomers.

Periodically into the summer months, we will introduce you to these new faces. Today we introduce incoming freshman EDGE R Mason Thomas. Thomas was a four-star prospect and a 141st-ranked player, according to ON3. And a young man became highly sought-after towards the end of the 2022 cycle. Oklahoma pulled out all the stops to nab him in the waning weeks of the 2022 recruiting cycle, and he is one of the top players snatched up by the current staff.

Who is R Mason Thomas?

R Mason Thomas is a 6-foot-two-inch 222-pound defensive end from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He was the leading sack-man for Cardinal Gibbons when they won the Florida 4A State Championship. He was named to the Sun Sentinel All-Broward 5A-1A first-team, as well as the  Miami Herald 5A-Ind first-team.

His father, Harvey, played defensive end at the University of Florida in the early 1990s. R Mason also ran track in high school and was able to show that ability under the Friday night lights when he took a direct snap 55 yards to the house in a playoff game. Thomas was initially committed to Matt Campbell and Iowa State before attracting more attention from other schools as the process played out.

Impact for Oklahoma and depth chart

I have heard R Mason Thomas has had an incredible camp and turned heads. As a freshman, he could end up as a rotational player at the defensive end spot. As for impact, I think he can be a very good player during his Sooner career, as evidenced by his early emergence in camp. Also, it’s never a bad thing when you can go into the state of Florida and take out a blue-chip recruit. It’s never easy to do that in enemy territory, and the Sooner staff managed to do that in a matter of more than two weeks from start to finish. Also, flipping the talented edge rusher from a rival within the conference. I listed him as the third defensive end in my three-deep projections.

Scouting

Thomas is a super athletic late bloomer type of prospect. He is currently built more like a linebacker. but has the room on his frame to add weight to help him be a true defensive end in Venables’s four-down system. Currently would consider him more of a “tweener,” which could help him get looks when the Sooners go three-down. He runs a 4.8 40 time, but in addition to that has a plethora of moves he uses to get to the passer. He takes good angles in the run game and is surprisingly stiff for a player of his size at the line of scrimmage. High ceiling player who could very well end up playing on Sundays and be an early-round draft pick type of guy.