The transfer portal has ballooned in recent year and dramatically changed college football recruiting is conducted. It is a give-and-take process with players leaving programs via transfer and new players being added via the same pathway.
Transfers is not a new phenomenon in college sports. You will always have junior college athletes seeking Division I opportunities, but with the new transfer rules, athletes at Division I schools are allowed to transfer to another school and not have to sit out a year before becoming eligible. They are afforded the opportunity to see the field immediately. It is the NCAA's version of free agency.
There are as many arguments about advantages and disadvantages of the portal, but as far as the Sooners are concerned, the players added through transfer in recent seasons have proved to be more beneficial than those who have elected to depart the team have detracted from OU's success on the field.
Arguably the most notable departure from the Oklahoma roster via transfer just occurred, with quarterback Dillon Gabriel choosing to play his final year eligibility as a member of the Oregon Ducks. But Gabriel's move was more out of recognition that the Sooners had planned that Gabriel would go pro after two seasons, paving the way for former five-star quarterback recruit Jackson Arnold to move into the starting role. Gabriel realized that if he remained at OU for another year that might prompt Arnold to go the transfer rout.
You don't have to go back too many years to see how successful the Oklahoma football program has been taking advantage of the talent pipeline and experience that is available in the transfer portal. Players that may not have been recruited or signed by the Sooners out of high school, but ended their collegiate career wearing an OU jersey and as valuable additions to the roster.
This got us to thinking, if there were a Mount Rushmore of the best Oklahoma transfer additions of the 21st century, during which the greatest influx and outgo of transfers has occurred in college athletics and most notably in football, which former Sooners would be most worthy of being memorialized in this fantasy manner?
Here are our four recommendations: