Oklahoma Sooners and Stability
—By Payton Guthrie
College football fans judge programs by their win-loss records, rivalry games, conference championships, playoff appearance, and (most importantly) national championships.
Internally, programs are usually weighed against year-to-year stability. Athletic directors or general managers are paid to “ignore” the whims of a bouncing, oblong-shaped ball and focus on the overall direction of the program.
With the increased player empowerment introduced by name, image and likeness deals and the ever-widening transfer portal, it begs the question… Have external results outpaced stability?
So far, the Oklahoma Sooners have taken in 68 players during Brent Venables’ four-year stint as head coach while losing 100 players to the portal. Oklahoma loses about 25 players a year via the portal, roughly the amount of an entire recruiting class most years, before adding in graduations and early NFL departures. That level of turnover from year to year would make it difficult to build a stable foundation for an elite college football program – at least, by the “old ways” of doing business.
Let’s compare the Sooners with the incoming and outgoing totals of top three SEC programs over the last four years to see if “stability” is still the gold standard of college football.
Talent Flow 2022 - 2025 for the Oklahoma Sooners
While Venables and company have been extremely busy in the portal, the recruiting trail is where they are stacking talent year over year. But my main concern is what we see when we compare OU’s roster management with the top contenders for the conference title.
Before digging in further, let’s look at the “talent flow” for Texas, Alabama, and Georgia.
The overall theme for the big boys is to recruit your talent, cull the roster, and then fill in the holes in the portal. While Texas, Alabama and UGA take in an average of eight players per cycle from the portal, Oklahoma has to “stop the bleeding” and stabilize its roster every year with variable results.
It’s much easier for teams to maintain a high talent level by being selective in the portal and spending money wisely. Over the last four years, Oklahoma has operated much more like Ole Miss or Missouri than the top of the SEC.
So, has the need for external results outpaced internal stability? Not at the championship level.
The real test for Brent Venables and new general manager Jim Nagy will be in their efforts to steady the ship for the future of Oklahoma football. As Chris Hummer recently published on CBS Sports, non-transfer players are close to five times more likely to be drafted than transfer/portal players.
Can Brent Venables “win now” while Jim Nagy tries to build a program that tries to consistently contend within a five year window? How does Joe Castiglione balance the calls for immediate external success and the need to find an equilibrium for roster construction?
To be the answer is clear, get out of the portal.