Oklahoma football: Eight former Sooners make their way to Super Bowl LVII

Eight former Oklahoma football players will be participating in the Super Bowl on Feb. 12 in Glendale, Arizona.

The eight former Sooners are the most of any school represented on either the National Football Conference champion Philadelphia Eagles or the American Football Conference champions, the Kansas City Chiefs. Those are the last two teams standing in the NFL Playoffs for the 2022 season.

The Chiefs are making their third Super Bowl appearance in the past four seasons. The Kansas City roster includes four former Oklahoma players, the same number that is represented on the Philadelphia Eagles roster.

The list is headlined by Philadelphia starting quarterback Jalen Hurts, who is also a candidate for the NFL Most Valuable Player award this season. Hurts transferred from Alabama and played the 2019 season at Oklahoma. He was the Heisman runner-up that same season.

Other former Sooners who will be wearing the green team colors of the Eagles in the Super Bowl are offensive tackle Lane Johnson, who is in his 10 NFL season. He was a first-round, the number four player taken overall, in the 2013 NFL Draft. Tight end Grant Calcaterra is in his first NFL season. He played at OU for three seasons (2017-19) before transferring to SMU for the 2021 season. Trey Sermon is a running back for the Eagles. He played at OU from 2017-19 and transferred to Ohio State for his senior season. Sermon was a third-round draft selection of the San Francisco 49ers in 2021 and was claimed off waivers by Philadelphia prior to this season.

The four former Sooners on the Kansas City roster include offensive linemen Orlando Brown and Creed Humphrey, tight end Blake Bell and long snapper James Winchester.

Brown played at Oklahoma for four seasons (2014-17) and was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the third round of the 2018 NFL Draft. He was traded to Kansas City in 2021. Humphrey is in his first NFL season, a third-round draft selection by the Chiefs this past spring. Bell, who was a quarterback at OU before converting to tight end his senior year in 2014. He has been with five NFL teams. This year is his second stint with Kansas City (2019 and 2021-22).

Winchester is the oldest of the former Sooners who are headed to this year’s Super Bowl in the Phoenix area. He played two seasons at OU (2010-11) and ironically signed with Philadelphia in 2013 as an undrafted free agent. He signed with the Kansas City Chiefs in 2015 and has been with them ever since. Winchester played on the Chiefs’ Super Bowl LIV championship team and also on the Kansas City team that lost in Super Bowl LV to Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This will be his third Super Bowl appearance with the Chiefs.