How Can Oklahoma’s Defensive Line Remain Strong Despite Notable Departures?

Oklahoma’s defensive line will look much different in 2026.

Sooners defensive ends R Mason Thomas and Marvin Jones Jr. and defensive tackles Gracen Halton and Damonic Williams all played their final college games on Dec. 19, when OU fell 34-24 to Alabama in the College Football Playoff First Round.

Who’s next in line to be a star on the line?

The best way to figure that out is to look at the trends from the past two seasons.

In both the 2024 and 2025 seasons, the players that made the biggest leaps played around 100 snaps before their breakout.

Halton jumped from 91 snaps in 2023 to 402 in 2024. Halton finished 2024 — his first year as a starter — with 30 tackles, six tackles for loss and five sacks. Thomas experienced a similar breakout that year, as he played on 529 snaps in 2024 after 175 snaps in 2023.

The trend was fairly similar in 2025.

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Defensive end Adepoju Adebawore went from 119 snaps in 2024 to 283 snaps in 2025. Defensive tackle David Stone played 454 snaps after appearing on just 94 snaps the season before. And defensive end Taylor Wein had the most dramatic change, logging 504 snaps in 2025 after recording only 34 as a redshirt freshman in 2024.

Following this pattern, two players seem to be likely candidates for breakout years in 2026: defensive end Danny Okoye and defensive tackle Markus Strong.

Okoye was a redshirt freshman in 2025 and played on 107 defensive snaps after playing on just four in the previous year. The edge rusher finished the season with six solo tackles, two sacks and a pass breakup. With Thomas and Jones no longer in the picture, Okoye will likely be heavily used alongside an established defensive end like Wein.

Oklahoma Sooners, Danny Okoye — Oklahoma defensive end Danny Okoye celebrates against Alabama in the CFP. | Carson Field, Sooners On SI

Strong played 106 snaps this year after appearing in only three games during his first two seasons. The redshirt sophomore registered seven total tackles, two tackles for loss, a sack and a safety in 2025.

While Halton and Williams leave sizable holes on the defense’s interior, Strong has shown his ability to be disruptive, and he’ll be a force while playing with Stone and Jayden Jackson.

Defensive tackles Trent Wilson and Nigel Smith and defensive end Wyatt Gilmore could see their roles grow next year, as they played 29, 13 and 13 snaps in 2025, respectively. Perhaps those three will see a snap count closer to 100 in 2026 before taking an even larger load in 2027.

It’s also possible that the Sooners add to the line via the transfer portal.

Last year, Jones was the only defensive lineman that OU added from the portal ahead of the 2025 season. The year before that, Williams transferred to OU from TCU.

The transfer portal doesn’t officially open until Jan. 2, but hundreds of college football players have already announced that they plan to transfer. Some of the best defensive linemen that have revealed their portal intentions include Penn State edge rusher Chaz Coleman, Oklahoma State defensive end Wendell Gregory and Wake Forest defensive tackle Mateen Ibirogba.