The quarterback room has changed a lot for the Oklahoma Sooners entering 2024. [autotag]Jackson Arnold[/autotag], [autotag]Casey Thompson[/autotag], [autotag]Michael Hawkins Jr.[/autotag], [autotag]Brendan Zurbrugg[/autotag] and [autotag]Steele Wasel[/autotag] make up the unit this season. They’ll be coached by [autotag]Seth Littrell[/autotag], who will serve as co-offensive coordinator along with [autotag]Joe Jon Finley[/autotag].
As OU enters Year 3 of the [autotag]Brent Venables[/autotag] era, the head coach has been hyper-focused on building up every part of the roster. He found what could be a key walk-on transfer in a veteran journeyman who has been all over the college football map.
Ideally, a backup quarterback isn’t something that is ever a big part of your season. Arnold is the starting quarterback for the Sooners in 2024 and will stay in that role as long as he is healthy enough to do so. If the worst does happen and Arnold falls with injury, Thompson and Hawkins Jr. would be the first options to replace him, with Zurbrugg and Wasel behind them.
While Thompson’s fellow backup quarterbacks are all youngsters (as is the guy playing in front of him) he’s the outlier. Thompson is entering his seventh year of college football and playing for his fourth different school.
It’s part of the reality of the new world of college football. The transfer portal, COVID-years of eligibility, and injury waivers provide the opportunity for players to play six or seven seasons at this level. The Sooners may benefit from Thompson’s final year of eligibility.
The Washington Post’s Kent Babb featured Thompson in a detailed article that dove deeper into the quarterback’s journey.
His father, Charles, was a star QB for the Sooners from 1986-1988, the final three seasons of the [autotag]Barry Switzer[/autotag] era. His older brother Kendal was a backup QB at OU from 2011-2013, before transferring to Utah for the next two seasons. However, Casey chose a different path out of high school, committing to play for the rival Texas Longhorns and head coach Tom Herman.
He spent three seasons as Sam Ehlinger’s backup before replacing him in the 2020 Alamo Bowl. He played under new head coach Steve Sarkisian in 2021, facing off against the Sooners in the fabled [autotag]Red River Rivalry[/autotag] game that season and diced up Alex Grinch’s defense. He helped the Longhorns jump out to a huge first half lead.
But after battling all season with Hudson Card for the starting gig in a 5-7 year, and with Quinn Ewers on the way to Austin in 2022, Thompson transferred to play for the Nebraska Cornhuskers. He again met rival Oklahoma in a blowout loss in Lincoln, and his time as a Husker didn’t go as planned.
“Once Casey started the 2022 season as the Cornhuskers’ starting quarterback, the offers poured in,” Babb said “He endorsed a protein doughnut brand, an apparel company, a barbershop. He spent $1,800 on a pair of off-white Air Force 1s, and when a group of high school buddies wanted to go to Austin on a weekend trip, the group stayed in a 10-bedroom mansion. Life was good, but Charles kept issuing warnings. Casey and his two brothers had grown up hearing them almost constantly, the echoes of their father’s trauma reverberating through every stage … In the Huskers’ first game of 2022, Coach Scott Frost opted to try a surprise onside kick against Northwestern. It failed, the first domino that ended in a blown double-digit lead. Two weeks later, Frost got fired, and players were left to flail. Casey got sacked 19 times and says now that he was hit 137 times in six weeks, at various points suffering injuries to a shoulder, a calf, his hip, his left wrist, an AC joint, even his jaw. Thumb surgery had weakened his grip on the ball, and yet another collision damaged nerves in his elbow.”
But that wasn’t the end of the rough season, according to Babb.
“In a game against Illinois, a defender crashed into Casey as he threw a pass, leaving him without feeling in his fingers. He had torn his labrum but, after missing two weeks, returned to the lineup and again played through it. Even running a makeshift attack, behind one of the nation’s worst offensive lines, Casey was among the nation’s most effective passers. Then, more dominoes. Nebraska hired Matt Rhule, the former Baylor and Carolina Panthers coach. A fourth playbook in two years and a fifth offensive coordinator. The winter transfer portal opened, and by the time it closed, 6-foot-4 quarterback Jeff Sims had departed Georgia Tech and was signing with the Cornhuskers. With his shoulder still healing, Casey couldn’t practice all spring. He and Rhule agreed that the new system, based more on power rushing than prolific passing, wasn’t a perfect fit. Though the portal had closed to football players, its gray areas include an exception for players with a new head coach. In April 2023, Casey’s future was again draped in uncertainty. Rhule hadn’t named a starter, but after their conversation, Casey knew the score. The only thing he could be sure of was that, 72 hours after the spring game, the portal would close.”
Thompson’s journey continued, ending up at Florida Atlantic for the 2023 season.
“During his third game, Casey fell to the turf while evading a Clemson defender. The pop in his right knee was the shredding of his ACL, his season finished in the blink of an eye,” Babb said.
After things didn’t go as planned at FAU, he had a decision to make about his future.
“When the NCAA approved his request for a medical exemption, granting him a chance to be a seventh-year college senior, he decided to continue only if one program welcomed him,” Babb said. “It’s the same one that recruited, excommunicated, and eventually forgave his dad. Casey had gone on a winding journey only to wind up back where he started. It had taken him traversing the country and multiple injuries for him to realize that, deep down, it was neither profit nor glory he had been chasing. It was stability. He yearned to belong, as his father does, and remember how it feels to be home.”
Thompson transferred and walked on at OU to batlle true freshman Hawkins Jr. for the back up job behind Arnold and has been rehabbing his injury, missing spring football. However, if his number is called upon in 2024, he could be ending his college football career, helping out his fourth-different team in seven seasons.
This time, it would be one close to home.
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