Blatant Homerism: Who's on the spot for the Oklahoma Sooners in 2026?
At this time of year, college football bloggers like myself love to inundate readers with listicles for the upcoming season centered around themes like most important players, best newcomers and breakout stars. But those seem pretty obvious to anyone who’s paying attention.
I like to highlight the people who are “on the spot” – those players and coaches with the potential to have an outsized impact on a squad’s fortunes. We’re not talking about stars and high-profile players here. We’re looking for what could dash a team’s hopes or elevate it from good to great. For example, after an up-and-down showing from the Cheetah position the prior year, Oklahoma State transfer Kendal Daniels entered the 2025 season firmly on the spot as the top option to fill the crucial role of hybrid linebacker-safety for the Oklahoma Sooners. Daniels took to the position immediately, adding lethal versatility to what became one of the top defenses in the entire country.
Here are five members of the team who are on the spot for the Sooners in 2026.
Defensive tackle Nigel Smith
A relentless front four defined OU’s ‘25 season, setting the tone for a defense that carried the program to an appearance in the College Football Playoff. The Sooners used a rotation of four defensive tackles to spread out the snaps throughout the year, which proved useful down the stretch when Jayden Jackson was laboring with a leg injury. Senior DTs Gracen Halton and Damonic Williams held up well as they took on a bigger workload in the back half of the year. Aside from making Jackson’s health paramount in ‘26, their departures add to the importance of finding replacements for the rotation in the trenches.
Smith was part of the same recruiting class as Jackson and heralded DT David Stone in 2024, but he has spent his first two seasons in Norman bulking up to handle the rigors of playing on the interior. He tacked on 30 pounds during that period and now appears ready to contribute up front..
Asking Smith to become a down-to-down disruptor sounds like a tall order, but his frame brings Halton to mind. A campaign from Smith like Halton’s junior season in ‘24 would go a long way towards shoring up OU’s front four.
Any wide receiver recruited by OU out of high school
As the years have passed since the Sooners hired Brent Venables, the need to fill their ranks at receiver through the transfer portal has grown more acute. In Venables’ first season on the job, 2022, the offense was spreading passes around to home-grown targets such as Marvin Mims, Drake Stoops and Jalil Farooq. By 2025, the leading receiver who OU recruited out of high school was Jacob Jordan, who snagged all of two balls for 43 yards.
No one cares about a wide receiver’s origin story if he’s catching touchdowns on Saturdays. But scouring the free agent market every offseason for frontline receivers still seems risky in the long run. If players such as sophomores Elijah Thomas and Manny Choice make their mark on the field this fall, it might ease some concerns about receivers coach Emmet Jones’ skills as a developer.
Bottom line: It would be nice to reinvigorate OU’s reputation as a launching pad for elite pass catchers.
The punter
It seems odd to assert that an all-conference player may lose his job in his senior year, but OU punter Grayson Miller is undoubtedly feeling some heat right now.
Miller booted the ball exceedingly well for most of the ‘25 season. However, his mistakes tended towards the catastrophic. He melted down badly, for instance, in OU’s CFP loss to Alabama: mishandling one punt attempt in the first half handed the Crimson Tide three points, while shanking another in the fourth quarter set up ‘Bama for a 35-yard touchdown drive.
Miller will likely have to compete with junior Jacob Ulrich for the punting job during preseason practices. The hope is that he bounces back from his ‘Bama blunders and earns another distinction as the top punter in the SEC. But if Miller’s confidence is shaken, that can be difficult to reclaim.
Assistant coach Kevin Wilson
In an offseason of notable changes to the OU coaching staff, promoting Wilson from his position as an analyst to assistant head coach for offense seems likely to have the biggest impact on the team this year.
Wilson is a familiar face around Norman. Former head coach Bob Stoops hired him away from Northwestern in the early 2000s to infuse OU’s spread offense with inventive approaches to the running game. Wilson took over as offensive coordinator in 2006 and built one of the most explosive attacks in college football history. He left the Sooners at the end of the 2010 season to become head coach at Indiana, and he later spent stints at Ohio State and Tulsa before ending up back at OU last year.
Venables is asking Wilson to once again help overhaul the OU ground game. In his first season with the Sooners, coordinator Ben Arbuckle oversaw an offense that went from putrid in ‘24 to middling in ‘25. OU’s improvement came primarily from quarterback John Mateer’s legs and right arm, and the plan this year is for the duo of Wilson and Arbuckle to fashion a more balanced offense that requires less hero ball from the QB.
Look for Wilson to incorporate a more intentional philosophy to running the ball that leans on a talented offensive line and physical play from an upgraded set of tight ends. If the Sooners can’t make that work, they’re looking at another year of hoping Arbuckle can mine as much production as possible out of a one-dimensional offense.
Running back Xavier Robinson
Let’s stick with a theme here.
We can spread around plenty of blame, but the RB position turned into a disaster for the Sooners last year. Pricey transfer Jaydn Ott and heralded prospect Taylor Tatum were complete nonfactors. Senior Jovantae Barnes hit the four-game limit and sat out the rest of the year to preserve his eligibility in preparation for an offseason transfer. That left Robinson and freshman Tory Blaylock attempting to carry the load while gutting out injuries for the entire year. The pair averaged a combined total of about 70 rushing yards per game in the process.
Robinson and Blaylock return this year, and they’re joined in the backfield by Colorado State transfer Lloyd Avant and freshmen Jonathan Hatton and DeZephen Walker. So why is Robinson the one on the spot? At around 235 pounds, he and Hatton have the build to handle the physical demands of playing RB in the SEC. However, Robinson’s accumulated experience in his first two years seems to make him a better fit as OU’s bell cow – at least early in the season.
Dependability hasn’t been Robinson’s calling card, though. He has shown flashes of stardom when available, but injuries like the one he suffered in the spring have prevented him from even coming close to fulfilling his potential. If he can make it through the season intact, Robinson stands to benefit significantly from the coaching staff’s professed commitment to pounding the rock.