Analysis: Why Oklahoma Hasn't Landed a Transfer Portal WR Yet

The spring transfer portal closes later today, and Oklahoma still hasn’t signed any wide receivers.

It hasn’t been for a lack of trying — and the Sooners haven’t thrown in the towel yet.

OU has looked into a couple of familiar faces, and they’ve pursued a few small-school guys with big numbers. They reportedly are entertaining one more portal wideout on a campus visit this weekend.

But after Jayden Gibson’s “setback” prior to spring practice and Javonnie Gibson’s broken leg at the end of spring practice (the injuries and the Gibsons are unrelated), can Brent Venables, Emmett Jones and the rest of the OU staff finally bring in a portal wideout who can make a difference for the Sooners’ new offense in 2025?

OU has already looked into a couple of former Sooners in Trejan Bridges and Keyon Brown, but it appears neither will be able to return to Norman this season.

Bridges is a former 5-star recruit who played at OU in 2019 and 2020 and was kicked off the team after a felony arrest in 2021. He spent a couple of years in junior college and last year at Central Arkansas.

Brown was a 4-star prospect who signed with the Sooners but never made it to campus due to academic ineligibility. He’s played his last two seasons at two different junior colleges.

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Both players have the athletic ability to impact the Oklahoma offense, but Bridges comes with enormous baggage, while some of Brown’s eligibility issues remain.

OU took a peek at Terrill Davis, who had an All-America season at Division II Central Oklahoma after leading the nation with 1,609 receiving yards and 15 touchdowns on 109 catches last year. But Davis committed Thursday to Oklahoma State.

The Sooners are now hoping to land Jer’Michael Carter from McNeese State.

Carter posted on Twitter/X on Tuesday that he had received an offer from OU, and the 6-foot-4 sophomore wideout is reportedly on campus today for a visit.

Carter fits the demographic that Jones went after during the winter portal: he’s a big-bodied receiver from a small school.

After the portal stripped a half-dozen wideouts from the 2024 roster, the Sooners replenished with Javonnie Gibson (Arkansas-Pine Bluff), Keontez Lewis (Southern Illinois), Isaiah Sategna (Arkansas) and Josiah Martin (Cal).

But there’s plenty of competition for Carter, who announced he’s also received offers from Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Baylor, Utah, West Virginia, Virginia Tech and others.

Carter was a starter at McNeese State, where he played four games in 2023 (three catches for 56 yards) and all 12 games in 2024 (37 catches, 537 yards, three TDs).

The Sooners also have offered Keelan Marion, an All-America return man at BYU. The 6-foot wideout from South Carolina spent three seasons at UConn and has 76 catches for 1,125 yards and seven touchdowns in his college career so far to go with 881 yards and three TDs on kick returns.

But it appears OU was quickly out of the running for Marion, who also announced offers from Miami, Arizona State, Kentucky, Arkansas, Florida State, Baylor, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wisconsin, Colorado and others.

Xavier Loyd was another name OU looked into. After one season at Kansas State and a big 2024 season at FCS Illinois State (66 catches, 912 yards, six TDs), the 6-2, 195-pound Loyd entered the portal on April 15, and by April 17 he had offers from OU, Florida State, Baylor, Missouri, West Virginia, Stanford, Cal, Duke, SMU and others.

He committed to Missouri on April 19.

Oklahoma was always in a tenuous situation with Carter, Marion, Loyd and any other quality wide receiver in the portal. The Sooners have NIL money to spend, but it’s not an unlimited amount, and new general manager Jim Nagy and his staff are hesitant to commit too much to a position where a lot of players are already getting paid but not a lot of players have produced.

Simply put, OU has the resources, but doesn’t want to continue to allocate them — i.e, the Sooners don’t want to continue to overpay — for another receiver, especially for one that would be arriving in June and would not have a strong grasp of the playbook or the culture. OU has enough wideouts on the roster who will get NIL money this year but likely won't play a whole lot.

The best solution for an impact wide receiver might never actually come to pass — or, maybe it will.

Brown, the former OU signee who spent the last two years trying to get eligible as a two-time juco transfer, might not be intimate with Ben Arbuckle’s playbook, but he does have a love for OU and a familiarity with Brent Venables and the Sooners’ culture, as well as a handful of current players from his 2023 recruiting class.

Listed at 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds, Brown committed to OU in June 2022 right after his first unofficial campus visit and signed with the Sooners that December — one of two high school wideouts Venables signed in the 2023 class, along with Jaquaize Pettaway (who hit the portal last December and landed at East Carolina).

But Brown decommitted from OU in May 2023 due to what was called an “eligibility snag” and landed at Garden City Community College in Kansas.

There he played in eight games in 2023 and caught 18 passes for 337 yards (18.7 yards per catch) and four touchdowns as a freshman. That included five catches for 106 yards and a TD at Independence Community College and a 91-yard touchdown at Coffeyville Community College.

After a 3 1/2-month commitment to play at Florida A&M in his hometown of Tallahassee, Brown instead decommitted and stayed in junior college, transferring to Iowa Western College.

Brown played in 10 games for the Reivers last season, catching 25 passes for 521 yards (nearly 21 yards per catch) and four touchdowns. That included three grabs for 138 yards and a 78-yard TD against Hutchinson Community College and two catches for 78 yards with a 70-yard TD against Georgia Military College.

Brown is the No. 15 overall juco prospect, according to the 247 Sports Composite juco rankings, and is the No. 2 wide receiver.

He still has to graduate in May with the necessary coursework to get into OU, and if that happens, the likelihood of him fulfilling his original commitment is probably high.

Brown has the skills to help the OU offense in 2025. He might also fit the NIL profile — low risk, high reward. But will he have the grades?

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