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Oklahoma Names Permanent Captains for 2025 Season

Brent Venables and his staff have identified the Sooners' leadership for team 131.
John Hoover|
Oklahoma QB John Mateer leads his team at the Crimson Combine.
Oklahoma QB John Mateer leads his team at the Crimson Combine. | John E. Hoover / Sooners On SI

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Oklahoma Sooners

Brent Venables and the Sooners have identified the leadership for Oklahoma in 2025.

And they came to it a bit differently this year.

After three years of naming weekly captains for each game, the Sooners will have permanent captains for the 2025 season, the team announced Saturday. 

OU named seven captains for the upcoming season: quarterback John Mateer, defensive end R Mason Thomas, center Troy Everett, linebacker Kip Lewis, safety Robert Spears-Jennings and defensive tackles Damonic Williams and Gracen Halton.

Of this year’s leadership group, six of the seven are returning starters or, in Halton’s case, a frontline rotational player. The other, Mateer, is a newcomer via the NCAA Transfer Portal.

After leading the nation with 44 total touchdowns last year at Washington State, Mateer, a fourth-year junior from Little Elm, TX, s expected to elevate an Oklahoma offense that was among the worst in college football season last year.

He'll do it behind an offensive line that's led by Everett, a senior from Roanoke, VA, and a former transfer from Appalachian State who returned from an offseason injury and broke into the starting lineup in the middle of last season and immediately improved a dismal Sooner offensive line.

The other five captains have all been instrumental in helping Venables turn around the Oklahoma defense.

Thomas, a senior from Fort Lauderdale, FL, led the Sooners with 9 quarterback sacks last year and earned second-team All-Southeastern Conference accolades as he paced the team with 12.5 tackles for loss with two fumbles forced and two fumbles recovered.

Lewis, a fourth-year junior from Carthage, TX, was third on the team with 65 tackles and saved both of OU's two SEC wins last year, returning interceptions for touchdowns against both Auburn and Alabama.

Spears-Jennings, a senior from Broken Arrow, OK, ranked second on the squad with 66 tackles and was among the national leaders with four fumbles forced to go with two fumbles recovered, one interception and five tackles for loss.

Williams, a senior from Torrance, CA, and a former transfer from TCU, led Oklahoma's defensive tackles with 35 total tackles while contributing 4.5 tackles for loss and 1.5 quarterback sacks.

Halton, a senior from San Diego, CA, made three starts and finished last year with 30 total tackles and led the Sooner d-tackles with six tackles for loss and five quarterback sacks, which included a game-saving safety late in a close win over Houston.

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John E. Hoover
JOHN HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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