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Like Thanos with the Infinity Stones, the transfer portal is inevitable. The Sooners have been great beneficiaries of the portal over the years. The quarterback run of Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, and Jalen Hurts were the cornerstones of the Lincoln Riley era, and all three transferred in.
More recently, Michael Woods and Key Lawrence made significant contributions to the 2021 Sooners after arriving through the transfer portal this year. The Sooners have watched from afar as portal departures Tanner Mordecai and Charleston Rambo put up excellent seasons for SMU and Miami.
For various reasons, the Oklahoma Sooners have seen their fair share of players enter the portal after Lincoln Riley’s departure for USC. Spencer Rattler, Theo Wease, Jadon Haselwood, and Austin Stogner headline an Oklahoma Sooners transfer list that will make their next team quite happy. Two of those players landed inside the top 10 of Anthony Treash’s (Pro Football Focus) rankings of top transfer portal players heading into the offseason.
Spencer Rattler, after losing his gig midseason to Caleb Williams, was an obvious candidate to depart Oklahoma, though it was unknown if he’d head to the NFL draft or try his hand at the college ranks one last time. Rattler comes in at No. 1 on Treash’s list.
Rattler’s collegiate production is truly some of the best PFF College has seen despite the fact that many believe Rattler isn’t a good passer. Rattler is actually still college football’s highest-graded passer since 2020. His deep ball struggled in 2021 due to more conservative play-calling: He earned a 45.5 passing grade on 20-plus yard throws this year after a 98.1 passing grade on such passes in 2020. But Rattler was pinpoint on every other throw. His No. 1 ranking in negatively graded throw rate and completion percentage over expectation (CPOE) for the 2021 season back that up. – Treash
The other player to make the list was tight end Austin Stogner, rated as the ninth-best player in the transfer portal per Treash. It was a bit of a disappointing season for a player that appeared to be on the verge of a breakout in 2021. But opportunity and inconsistency in the offense minimized his impact. Still, in the Oklahoma State game, Stogner made his presence felt and reminded everyone why he’s such a threat in the passing game.
Here’s what Treash had to say.
Stogner was in the midst of a breakout sophomore season in 2020 before suffering an injury in Week 10 that led to a staph infection. Stogner lost 35 pounds during the brutal recovery process, and he struggled to regain that breakout level of play when he returned in 2021. Before the major injury and infection last season, Stogner owned an 87.3 receiving grade while putting up 2.72 yards per route run and a 15-plus yard gain on 32% of his targets. All three of those metrics ranked inside the top five among all FBS tight ends. – Treash
Though the Sooners didn’t live up to the preseason expectations they had for themselves, it was still an incredibly talented team in 2021. While it’s unfortunate that a player like Austin Stogner couldn’t realize his full potential with the Sooners, he and Spencer Rattler’s seasons were a microcosm of what went down with the Oklahoma Sooners in 2021. Despite winning 10 games, very little looked like the team many thought they’d be heading into the season.
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