Oklahoma Sooners news: Failed drug tests, LB starting at TE, new DL commit

Failed drug tests

Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables exposed some eye-opening details about his program during his first weekly press conference of the 2025 season on Tuesday.

Venables said that in his first season as OU's head coach in 2022 after replacing Lincoln Riley that OU had a team GPA of 2.2 and “a lot of guys that didn’t pass drug tests. A lot.”

“We had a lot to work through,” Venables said. “I chose not to ask anyone to leave when I first got here. Let me give everybody a fair shot and just kind of see where we’re at. Through time, some players chose to leave, some players just weren’t fitting the bill when it came to going to class and living right off the field. As a football program, we had a lot of issues the first year.”

The overall point was how far the Sooners have come in Venables' four years, at least off the field, with six straight semesters of a team GPA of over 3.0.

“That’s not taking a shot at anybody,” Venables said. “I’m grateful for the players that were here and helped us kind of get to this point. But the bottom line is, we had to start completely over in many ways. And it’s been a lot of fun, too. You don’t sit back and celebrate it. There’s no badge of honor with it. It’s getting closer to what we want, but not where we want it to be yet.”

LB starting at TE

Of the many surprises on OU's Week 1 depth chart, one was Jaren Kanak being listed as the starting tight end after just converting from linebacker this offseason. Kanak spent the last three years at linebacker before switching sides of the ball ahead of his senior season.

Despite the recent switch, though, Kanak impressed enough during fall camp to already earn the starting job at his new position.

"Jaren went out there and he earned it," OC Ben Arbuckle said. "And that's not to say those other guys haven't done an unbelievable job. They are all still going to play, too. But Jaren earned the right to run out there first."

New DL commit

Three-star 2026 defensive lineman T-Ron Richardson on Tuesday evening announced his commitment to OU. He became the Sooners' sixth addition to their future defensive front and 18th overall commit.

According to the 247Sports Composite, Richardson is the No. 48 defensive lineman in the 2026 class.

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