Oklahoma football: Sooners prevalent among top-16 all-time QB transfers
By Chip Rouse
The Oklahoma football program, for one, has been a big benefactor as well as a victim, of the QB transfer market in recent years.
The transfer market does not discriminate between positions. It’s open to all comers regardless of position. With the new NCAA one-time, immediate-eligibility rule, we’ve even seen high-quality quarterbacks moving on for a final season or two at a new destination.
Because of the new transfer rules, we’ve seen greater movement of high-profile quarterbacks, but there were some big names at the quarterback position changing teams even before the transfer rules were relaxed several years ago.
Brad Crawford of 247Sports has looked into this further and has come up with a ranking of the top 16 all-time quarterback transfers. The list goes all the way back to the mid-1970s and Vince Ferragamo, who transferred to Nebraska from the University of California. In 1976, as Nebraska starting quarterback, he was named Sporting News National Player of the Year. Ferragamo is No. 15 in Crawford’s ranking.
Also notable on the list is Ryan Mallet, who tragically died from drowning this past week on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Mallet transferred to Arkansas after beginning his collegiate career at Michigan.
Four of the 16 former college quarterbacks who are included in the ranking have Oklahoma football connections. Perhaps not surprisingly, former Sooner All-American and Heisman winner Baker Mayfield is the highest-ranked OU quarterback on the list. Mayfield comes in No. 2 behind Joe Burrow (who moved from Ohio State to finish his college career at LSU). Mayfield transferred to Oklahoma after his freshman season at Texas Tech and led the Sooners to two College Football Playoff appearances.
Jalen Hurts is No. 5 on the list. Hurts finished his collegiate career playing one season (2019) at Oklahoma after transferring from Alabama.
Mayfield and Hurts were incoming transfers to the Oklahoma program, but two former Sooners in the top-16 ranking left the OU program to transfer to new schools.
Caleb Williams is ranked No. 4 in the ranking, just ahead of Hurts. Williams was recruited to Oklahoma as the No. 1 quarterback in the 2021 class nationally. He became the OU starter midway through the 2021 season but followed his head coach, Lincoln Riley, to USC after his freshman season. Williams is the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, which, had he remained at Oklahoma, might have resulted in a much better 2022 season for the Sooners but also potentially in the school’s third Heisman winner, along with a Heisman runner-up (Hurts,) in five seasons.
NFL Hall of Famer Troy Aikman began his college career at Oklahoma in 1985. He was the first freshman to start at QB for the Sooners since the end of World Wat II. Aikman engineered OU wins over Minnesota, Kansas State and No. 17 Texas to begin the 1985 season but suffered a broken ankle in the first half of Game 4 that season against Miami (Florida). He was replaced by another young freshman named Jamelle Holieway. The Sooners went on to win their sixth national championship that season. Aikman never regained his starting job and elected to transfer to UCLA, where he became an All-American in 1988.
You can see the Crawford’s entire top-16 ranking of transfer quarterbacks by clicking here.
The list is interesting, but there is one notable omission, in my opinion. And it happens to be another former Oklahoma transfer quarterback. I’m speaking specifically of Kyler Murray. Like his OU teammate Mayfield, Murray also led a Sooner team to the College Football Playoff, won a Heisman Trophy and was the No. 1 overall selection in the NFL Draft. All of this occurred after he transferred to Oklahoma after one season at Texas A&M.