Oklahoma football: Why Dillon Gabriel, Marvin Mims should/will come back
By Chip Rouse
The Oklahoma football program is no different than any other in college sports. Players leave and new players enter the program every year.
You have players who graduate and/or have exhausted their eligibility. And you have players who now have the opportunity to declare for the NFL Draft once they are three full years out of high school. And then there is thing called the transfer portal.
Generally speaking, the transfer portal has negligible impact on a roster year over year because typically the players who elect this route probably aren’t playing that much or are in starting roles. And also because the portal both giveth and taketh away.
The one that can really hurt, though, is the early opt-outs for the NFL Draft. Oklahoma had four starters opt out of the Cheez-It Bowl against Florida State — RB Eric Gray, OL Anton Harrison, OL Wanya Morris and DL Jalen Redmond — to prepare for the NFL Draft. All four had at least one more year of eligibility remaining if they wanted it. You can’t fault any of these guys for the personal choice they have made, but it still hurts all the way around.
A couple of other guys who are impact players on the offensive side and are draft eligible but who could be even better and more important to Oklahoma next year are QB Dillon Gabriel and WR Marvin Mims. Neither has publicly announced what their future plans are.
The chances of Gabriel returning for the 2023 season are probably greater than Mims, but the Sooners absolutely need both to come back for another year.
Gabriel had a good year by quarterback standards, but he could use another year at OU in this offensive system to improve his NFL Draft stock if he has an ambition to play at the next level. And to be completely candid, the Sooners need him to come back in 2023 and help groom Jackson Arnold as the OU quarterback of the future.
After passing for over 8,000 yards and 70 touchdowns in two-plus seasons at Central Florida (UCF), Gabriel finished his first season at Oklahoma completing 63 percent of his passes for 3,163 yards and 25 touchdowns, second most in the Big 12 next to Max Duggan of TCU.
I feel pretty confident in the expectation that Gabriel will be back for a second season next fall. For one thing, I would have expected Oklahoma to be much more active in the transfer portal in search of a starting quarter had there been reason to believe that Gabriel wouldn’t be returning.
Projecting what Marvin Mims will decide is another matter entirely. There are reports and mock drafts suggesting that the Sooners’ top receiver could be a top-60 pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. That leaves Mims with a lot of deep thinking to do about his future. Personally, I believe he could improve upon and certainly solidify a first- or second-round selection with another solid college season of showing what he can do, but there is also the risk of injury, which could potentially change everything.
Mims’ best season at OU was clearly this past one, with 54 catches for 1,083 yards and six touchdowns. He averaged over 20 yards per reception in 2022. With Brayden Willis, Theo Wease and Eric Gray not returning, the Sooners could definitely benefit from Mims’ talent and leadership at the receiver position next season. Right now, however, I would put his chances of returning at 50/50. I’m sure he will announce his future plans very soon, perhaps even before the end of this week.
While Brent Venables and his staff are awaiting official announcements on Gabriel and Mims, they did receive good news on the returning from with the decisions by DT Isaiah Coe and CB Woodi Washington that they will be returning for the 2023 season.