Players are zipping in and out of the transfer portal and ending up all over the place. Nowadays QB transfers are a major, defining feature of the college game and there have been some big ones that will shape the 2019 season.
Oklahoma wins the “biggest free agent in college football history”
Jalen Hurts’ dad said that Hurts would become that back in the day when Tua Tagovailoa appeared to have him beat (he did) for the starting job. As it turned out, Justin Fields also became available and was the true “biggest free agent” in history. This was a nice “consolation prize” of sorts for Oklahoma though and arguably better because Hurts is a one-year stopgap that doesn’t spoil Oklahoma’s chances of developing Spencer Rattler or Tanner Mordecai into their starter down the line.
As for Austin Kendall, he has also entered the transfer portal and may come out the other side in Auburn or perhaps West Virginia but currently Oklahoma is looking to block some of his options. Obviously it’s a pretty lame trick to block a transfer from a QB that you are using the transfer market to keep off the field.
Jalen Hurts is a fascinating fit for the Oklahoma offense with a history as a phenomenal runner but a spotty if careful passer who was famously replaced at QB by Tua Tagovailoa because his lack of passing acumen was holding the Tide back.
As it happens, I broke down the adjustment that Alabama made on offense in 2017 that doomed Hurts back at the time. The increased emphasis that OC Brian Daboll put on the pass game made Hurts less effective than he’d been even as a freshman with Lane Kiffin, who built the offense more around read plays. That led me to predict Georgia would beat Alabama in the national title game, a prediction that looked brilliant up until Tua Tagovailoa came in for Hurts in relief and led a comeback by throwing RPOs.
Hurts would sort of return the favor in the SEC title game this year, helping to lead Alabama back to a victory over Georgia by utilizing some scrambles, the Bama run game, and a transparent fake punt attempt that utilized Justin Fields. He was then relegated back to the bench for the playoffs because Tagovailoa is better and made better use of Alabama’s loaded WR room.
That makes the fit at Oklahoma a little interesting and bizarre. On the one hand, Oklahoma is adding an extremely athletic and extremely experienced college QB who’s been in more playoff games than Lincoln Riley has coached. On the other hand, what makes Oklahoma scary in 2019 is their ability to put Ceedee Lamb, Charleston Rambo, and Grant Calcaterra on the field at the same time. You want a QB that can make the most of those wideouts, which has never been Jalen Hurts’ forte.
Nevertheless, you know that Riley will make hay with Hurts with their normal run game and perhaps some bonus features and also set him up for a lot of one-read throws in the passing game. If nothing else, Oklahoma remains competitive (pending defensive improvements) while developing more talented passers like Tanner Mordecai and Spencer Rattler behind a hard-working leader.
Oklahoma State pulled some defensive help from the portal
A former target they lost to Colorado just before signing day, Israel Antwine. He’s a 6-4, 315 pounder that started 11 games for the Buffs last year as a DT, so he should be quite useful to a team who’s recruiting defeats at that position had left them in a tough spot in replacing three starters across the DL.
TCU turns to Alex Delton
This one is just kinda sad, honestly. There was hope that TCU would get Jalen Hurts but he didn’t even visit and they’ve been desperate to find a transfer after Shawn Robinson left for Missouri. There’s got to be a story there but it seems obvious enough that TCU wasn’t planning on losing their 2018 starter.
Delton was planning to transfer to UTEP to run the Snyder-ball offense under former Bill Snyder OC Dana Dimel but then TCU made him a better offer. Namely, to play at TCU rather than UTEP.
The problem here is that Alex Delton isn’t a good passer and was probably the worst in the Big 12 in 2018. It’s hard to see him beating Michael Collins out for a team that desperately needs to involve Jalen Reagor in the passing game to be the best version of themselves.
I’d be convinced that TCU was going to play him as a wideout or RB or something if not for the fact that A) TCU has been hunting for a grad transfer QB to help depth and B) if Delton wanted that maybe he should just stay at K-State where there’s an opening at RB.
My suspicion is that he’ll compete in the spring, be well behind Collins and anyone else they have at QB (Max Duggan is an early enrollee), and then be moved to WR over the summer.
Transfers and the transfer portal all make the offseason in this sport pretty interesting but they also cut against the purity of the game. Football is a war game that’s all about sacrifice and teamwork and the transfer market transforms it into something highly mercenary. This is probably just where football is headed and it’s not totally foreign to the game to have truly mercenary elements, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something tragic about this trend and something that’s being lost.
I think the Hurts transfer will be interesting. Limited thrower and he will be behind an inexperienced O Line. I didn’t really have super high expectations for OU next year, but they have an EXTREMELY manageable schedule. Between Grinch trying to implement the new defense (which I have a feeling will include new positions for certain players), the limitations of the offense with Hurts at qb and 4 new lineman I think 11-2 is realistic. If we play Texas twice, MAYBE we steal one. Idk.
To be fair, I think the Hurts transfer was best case scenario for OU. Mostly for all of the reasons you mentioned above. Just seems like a lot of shuffling on the roster to expect another playoff berth.
Remember when there were question marks about Mayfield and Murray as passers? If Riley and Hurts can work together for 9 months and turn him into a *good* not great passer, OU’s offensive drop off may not be that severe.
Recall, OU was > 5 points ahead off #2 Bama in offensive S&P+ (and Alabama was 5 pts ahead of #3). If the Sooners have a 20% regression, they’d still be TOP FIVE in offensive S&P+. Even with a 40% regression, they’re in the top 30! The specific combination of Hurts as a runner with power somewhat mitigates the effect of OU’s losses along the OL for the run game. His discipline as passer may keep OU out of some of the long down/distance situations.
OU’s potention WR packages next year different from anything the Sooners have had in this era. OU’s historically had excellent smaller receivers (Clayton, Broyles, Shepard, eg). Now they’ll have a bunch of bullies playing WR. The trio of Haselwood, Wease, and Bridges are 6’3″, 6’3″, 6’2″. They’ll be replacing two walkon receivers who were sub-6.
Think OU’s offense will be moving in a somewhat different direction next year to exploit these matchups on the outside. Needless to say, I see some regression from OU’s 2018 offense. The 2019 Sooners offense will allow it to contend for Big12 championship and a playoff spot.
OU’s O-Line problems might be a bit overblown.. Replacing 4 starters is no joke and will likely take a few games to gel. But OU has had to shuffle offensive linemen every season since Riley came aboard, including replacing an all conference center and a rookie NFL starter this year. But they did all right these past few years on offense.
Replacing 4 is pretty tough though. Just depends on how much they have in the pipeline and where it’s at in development.
They should be good still yet not as good as a year ago. The question is whether they can afford the decline and still win a B12 title in a conference with an improving Texas.
The problem, though, is that if you go with your worst case scenario for regression and assume only a top 30 offense, without any defensive improvement, you’re looking at … Texas Tech from the last two seasons, basically.
And even assuming much less regression, for instance, a top five offense instead of number one by a mile like the last two years, that’s probably not enough to win the conference. In fact, it might result in two or three losses. As bad as the defense has been there’s just no margin for regression at all.
Every scenario I’ve seen for another Oklahoma B12 title involves the D finally making the leap to a top 60 or top 40 unit. Like you’re noting, the likely offensive regression is a killer without a jump from the defense.
UT in 2018 was top 25 offense, top 50 defense (S&P+). That’s doable for OU in 2019. When a program is in the down part of the cycle and still has a conference championship as a reasonable expectation, they’re going to do alright.
As a program Oklahoma is in good shape. They won’t take too hard a dip on offense and then will likely jump back up, they’re in the process of trying to work through some things on D, etc. I wouldn’t try to say that the program is going down, but I don’t think they’re in great position to fend off Texas and it could LOOK like they’re on a bad trajectory in coming years because they’ll inevitably be compared to Texas when in reality it may just occur that the Sooners are treading water at a really high level and Texas hits a higher level.
I still think you are being a bit hand wavy with Texas’ questions. I mean, Ehlinger goes down and there’s a true freshman and a redshirt freshman behind him. And Texas’ D lost a lot and wasn’t even that great last season. They’ve only had 1 top 30 defense since 2014.
I mean, if Ehlinger goes down against a top team or for an extended period of time then Texas will be in bad shape. That’s true of most every team every year. The question is whether they can play winning football with Casey Thompson or Roschon Johnson in for a game, which points back to the same questions this team already has about whether they can build a better defense and how much the run game improves.
I think the run game will improve considerably. The defensive questions aren’t inconsiderable but this team has some talented pieces of the sort that everyone would kill for. One of their “problems” is an over abundance of freakish, rangy, physical safeties. The hope on defense is that names like:
Anthony Cook
Malcolm Roach
Joseph Ossai
BJ Foster
Caden Sterns
Demarvion Overshown
Are going to soon be names that every B12 fan knows. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen but it’s possible.
OU and Texas have been and will always be compared. Even when they were in different conferences, they were the reasonable comparisons for each other.
What you’re talking about is a return to the 00’s, where both OU and UT were top 5 programs. OU’ll be happy to “tread water” at a top five level with several conference championships and playoff appearances. UT needs to live up to its end of the bargain.
Its a great time for the rivalry. But I can tell you from experience that even if OU is better than they have been over the next 5 years, if they don’t hold up relative to Texas than people won’t be happy in OK.
But neither team has a clear edge right now in my estimation. Riley has done more but he inherited a different situation and Herman’s trajectory should be a concern.
Mack Brown was a great recruiter too. Mack and Lincoln Riley now have the same number of Big 12 championships.