Oklahoma football: Four former Sooners win Super Bowl with Kansas City Chiefs

Four former Oklahoma football players were on the winning side as the Kansas City Chiefs captured their second Super Bowl victory in the last four seasons on Sunday night.

Five former Sooners total participated in the game before a nationwide television audience and a sold-out State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

Kansas City center Creed Humphrey was in the center of the action, anchoring a Chiefs’ offensive line that failed to give up a single sack against one of if not the best defensive lines in the National Football League. Another member of that Super Bowl-winning Kansas City offensive line is former Sooner alum Orlando Brown Jr.

Humphrey and Brown just missed each other at Oklahoma. Brown’s last season as the Sooners’ left tackle was in 2017. Humphrey played at OU from 2018-2021 and played on two Sooner College Football Playoff teams (2018 and 2019). Brown also played on an Oklahoma College Football Playoff team, protecting the blind side for OU Heisman-winning quarterback Baker Mayfield in the 2015, ’16 and ’17 seasons.

In a bit of irony, former Oklahoma women’s basketball star Stacy Dales, now a reporter for ESPN, spoke with both Humphrey and Brown after the game. She asked both about the performance of the Kansas City offensive line.

"“We’ve been hearing all week just about how historical their (the Eagles) D-line is, and how no one can block them,” Humphrey told Dales. “And so, you, know, we wanted to make a statement tonight.”“It’s historical, what this front five was able to do,” Brown said. “Pat (QB Patrick Mahomes) winning the MVP, now standing out here as a Super Bowl champion. I mean, it’s the work. It’s the work we put in.”"

Kansas City Long-snapper James Winchester was also a member of this Chiefs team. He is the old man among the former Sooners who are now Chiefs. This was his eighth NFL season, all with Kansas City, and this was his third Super Bowl appearance, with two winning Chiefs’ teams to account for it.

There was one other former Oklahoma Sooner on this year’s Chiefs’ roster. Tight end Blake Bell is in his second stint with Kansas City, but he was inactive for this year’s Super Bowl.

Oklahoma Sooner football wasn’t just represented on the Kansas City sidelines for this game. If Kansas City had not won this game, Philadelphia quarterback Jalen Hurts would have carted home the MVP trophy with an MVP-worthy performance, albeit in a losing cause.

Hurts, in his third NFL season, completed 27 of 38 passes for 304 yards and a touchdown. He also was credited with 70 of Philadelphia’s 115 rushing yards, including three rushing touchdowns. The three rushing TD’s were a Super Bowl record for a quarterback. Humphrey was the center delivering the ball to Hurts in the latter’s one season as an Oklahoma Sooner in 2019.

"“You either win or you learn,” Hurts told reporters in the Super Bowl postgame press conference. “As always, win, lose or draw, I always reflect on the things I could’ve done better, the things we could’ve done better, to try and take that next step.”"

There were winners and losers on both sides of the Oklahoma football family in this Super Bowl, but it was good to see the Sooner football family so well represented.

At the beginning of the 2022 college and NFL seasons, there were 40 former Sooners on NFL rosters. Six of them made it all the way to Super Bowl LVII. There were more former Sooners in this year’s Super Bowl than any other college team. Florida was next with four.