2024 is a big year for college sports. Major realignment has changed the face of the sport forever. The Pac-12 as we know it is gone, and the remainder of the Power Five, now Power Four, will be accepting new members.
One thing remains constant amid the newness: the Oklahoma Sooners are looking for that elusive eighth national title. And as they head to the sport’s toughest conference the Sooners are having a revolution of sorts themselves.
[autotag]Dillon Gabriel[/autotag] is no longer the starting quarterback. He’ll hold that role at Oregon. [autotag]Jackson Arnold[/autotag] is now the man on campus for the Sooners. With just months away from his first full campaign, projecting what Arnold will look like is fool’s gold. We don’t know. We saw a young quarterback making his first collegiate start in the [autotag]Valero Alamo Bowl[/autotag].
ESPN writer David Hale ranked every FBS team’s quarterback situation into tiers (subscription required.). While there is no [autotag]Caleb Williams[/autotag] or [autotag]Drake Maye[/autotag] level of surefire quarterback, there is talent throughout the nation. Jackson Arnold was placed in Tier 4, deemed “The Young and the Restless.”
It features names like Avery Johnson (Kansas State), Dylan Raiola (Nebraska), Nico Iamaleava (Tennessee), and USC‘s Miller Moss.
There’s a lot of recruiting pedigree among these names. Multiple four – and five-star quarterbacks, but they only have a combined four starts. Raiola is a true freshman this year and has yet to take a snap in a real college game.
Hale believes that there’s a real possibility that a couple of the players in this group could rise to Tier 1. Oklahoma’s hoping and banking on that. Arnold’s arm talent is second to none. Still, he needs the repetitions and the experience to materialize into the quality of quarterback that people have come to expect in Norman.
For all of [autotag]Lincoln Riley[/autotag]’s deserved praise for the QB play in Norman during his time here, Brent Venables’s hire of Jeff Lebby netted plenty of good QB play with Dillon Gabriel. With Jackson Arnold taking the reigns this year, the Sooners can continue to remind the nation that great quarterback play didn’t only happen under Riley’s watch.
Arnold’s ascension is a massive storyline related to Oklahoma’s hopes this year. If he does take a leap forward and elevates himself, Oklahoma could very well be making its return to the College Football Playoff.
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