Report: Oklahoma DT David Stone Has Entered the Transfer Portal

In a stunning and damaging Friday night development, Oklahoma defensive tackle David Stone has reportedly entered the NCAA Transfer Portal.

Stone, a 5-star recruit who grew up in Oklahoma City cheering for the Sooners, has apparently left the team, according to On3’s Pete Nakos. ESPN later reported Stone's departure.

NEW: Oklahoma true freshman DL David Stone has entered the NCAA transfer portal, @PeteNakos_ reports.

Stone was a Five-Star Plus+ in the 2024 class.https://t.co/RD1MgHJN2t pic.twitter.com/6nlXbqgQ0b
— On3 (@On3sports) April 19, 2025

Stone, who’s just now finishing his true freshman year of college, just spoke with the media on April 1, ahead of OU’s Crimson Combine concluded spring practice, and seemed to describe his 15 months in Norman as nothing but positive, including the growth he’s shown from Year 1 to Year 2.

“I’ve been killing it this spring,” he said. “Winter workouts was a fun time for me. I'm up like 15-20, pounds, moving better than ever. So those things, you know, making those small improvements, all over — it’s been a big part of my game so far.

“I let a lot of things outside of football affect the way I was carrying myself,” Stone said. “But regardless of all that, I've done better. I've grown as a man. You know, Coach Bates has helped me a lot with that, with my family, being a bigger brother, those things like that. And it allows me to be that for the team. I have a lot of younger guys here, so being able to give them game on how to become a better player is something I take pride in as a as a human being.”

According to the 247 Sports rankings, Stone was ranked as the No. 8 all-time OU recruit behind Adrian Peterson, Rhett Bomar, Michael Fasusi, Caleb Williams, Jadon Haselwood, Tommie Harris and DeMarcus Granger. Per 247 Sports, he's the highest-rated recruit ever out of the state of Oklahoma.

He began his high school career at Del City, where he was a standout for two seasons. After playing his final two seasons of high school ball at IMG Academy in Florida, the 6-foot-3, 313-pound Stone enrolled at OU last January.

OU SPRING PORTAL TRACKER

Last fall, Stone played in all 13 games last season as part of OU’s improved defensive line rotation and made six tackles with 2.0 tackles for loss and one quarterback sack.

Stone's departure — if he leaves; players can enter the portal, look around at other schools and then change their minds and technically return to their previous school — can only been seen as a massive setback for the Oklahoma football program. Last year the Sooners lost 4-star offensive line prospect Cayden Green after a Freshman All-American season in Norman after he supposedly got a better NIL deal from Missouri.

Why Life Outside of Football No Longer Hinders David Stone

While Green's decision last spring shocked everyone at OU and even his parents, Stone's loss is bigger, however, because he's a local product (Green was born in Tulsa and parents played college basketball at Oral Roberts University but he grew up in Kansas City), and because of the growth and progress the OU defensive line had shown in Brent Venables' first three seasons. Stone wasn't projected to be a starter yet this year — senior Damonic Williams is back, as is Freshman All-American Jayden Jackson — but he would easily have been No. 3 or at least in the initial four-man rotation.

“Me as a player, yeah,” Stone said back on April 1. “I feel like, for myself, I had a big issue with just being able to let … my life outside of football affect my football.”

As an example, Stone said last year he might “dominate a lot of the team settings and stuff,” but outside circumstances — also known as “life” — would often creep into his performance, things he attributed to bad “body language” due to academic work or relationships or who knows what.

“As a player, I had to learn how to compartmentalize those things, separate the two, and be able to kind of handle the pressures of outside life with football,” he said. “And I feel like this year, I made the jump as a player, being able to dominate that space.”

Not that grades were a problem for Stone. He was one of 59 Sooners who made the SEC All-Academic Team last year. But his ability to shift his focus between the two was something he had to get better at so lingering thoughts about one wouldn’t interfere with the other.

“I was proud of that,” Stone said. “It was a big accomplishment for me, off the field and on the field.”

Stone’s exit probably means more snaps for the frontline guys like Gracen Halton, Williams and Jackson, but it could also mean additional playing time for players like redshirt freshman Nigel Smith, who spent the latter portion of spring practice out with a leg injury, or 4-star true freshman Trent Wilson, who teammates have said is ready to break into the lineup on day one.

Last Saturday, during the Crimson Combine, news broke that defensive back Mykel Patterson-McDonald, a freshman from Westmoore, OK, and one of Stone’s best friends — and supposedly one of the reasons Stone eventually chose to come to OU — had left Oklahoma via the transfer portal. It’s unknown exactly what, if any, affect Patterson-McDonald’s departure had on Stone’s decision.

Stone is OU’s seventh entry into the spring transfer portal window, joining defensive backs Pete Schuh, Jocelyn Malaska and Patterson-McDonald, center Josh Aisosa, running back Sam Franklin and tight end Davon Mitchell.

College football's spring transfer portal window opened on Wednesday and this year runs through April 25. Coming regulations are expected to be introduced soon that will allow just one transfer portal period, likely a January window after college football bowl games are concluded.

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