While most of the focus this time of year is naturally focused on the preparation and players who will represent Oklahoma football in the 2025 season, a watchful eye is also on former Sooners who are transitioning to careers at the professional level.
The NFL Draft, the major headliner of the NFL offseason, kicks off on Thursday for a three-day run at iconic Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
The Sooners have been a rich source of talent throughout the 86-year history of the NFL Draft, officially known as the Annual Player Selection Meeting and the primary source of player recruitment in the National Football League.
Sooners have rich history in NFL Draft
Over the long history of the NFL Draft, which began in 1936, 417 Oklahoma players have been selected as part of the draft, fourth most of all schools. USC reportedly has supplied 523 players to the NFL Draft, the most of any school, narrowly edging out Notre Dame with 520.
Ohio State is third with 487. Michigan rounds out the top five with 412 draft selections.
Linebacker Danny Stutsman and safety Billy Bowman Jr. are the most likely former Sooners to hear their names called in this year's NFL Draft. Most mock draft boards have both Stutsman and Bowman going in the third or fourth round of the draft. Other potential OU draft picks include DE Ethan Downs, DT Da'Jon Terry and DB Woodi Washington.
Of the 417 OU football players whose names have been selected as part of the NFL Draft, 49 were first-round selections, including five No. 1 overall picks (1976 Lee Roy Selmon, 1980 Billy Sims, 2010 Sam Bradford, 2018 Baker Mayfield and 2019 Kyler Murray).
Oklahoma and USC are the only two schools to have players selected No. 1 overall in back-to-back years (OU in 2018 and 2019; USC in 1968 and 1969).
For 19 consecutive years (2005-2023), the Sooners had no fewer than four players taken in the NFL Draft. This streak was snapped in 2024, when only three OU players (OTs Tyler Guyton and Walter Rouse and DL Jonah Laulu) were taken in the seven rounds of the draft.
The most Oklahoma draft selections in any one year was 13 in 1988. That draft year included two Sooner first-round picks (DB Rickey Dixon at No. 5 overall and TE Keith Jackson, the 13th overall selection).
In the 86-year history of the NFL Draft, only twice (1962 and 1995) was there a year in which a Sooner player was not selected.
The very first NFL Draft was held in 1936 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. J.W. "Dub" Wheeler, a tackle, was the first and only OU player selected in the first NFL Draft. Jay Berwanger, a halfback for the University of Chicago, was the first collegiate player drafted into the National Football League. Berwanger was also the first player awarded the Heisman Trophy in 1935.
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