Transfer Talk: What Oklahoma is Getting in WR Keontez Lewis

It sounds like Sooner Nation is going to like Keontez Lewis, whether that’s on the football field, or off.

Lewis is one of four wide receivers to join the OU roster in 2025 via the transfer portal this offseason. At 6-foot-2 and 185 pounds, Lewis is a big target, fast and explosive and dynamic with the football in his hands.

But he’s also apparently quite likable away from the game.

“He's a very engaging personality. He always had a smile at practice,” said Luke Martin, director of broadcasting at Southern Illinois University and the voice of the Salukis. “One of those guys who would always joke around, whether it was with the athletic trainer, joke around with whomever was around him — but when it came time for football, dude was locked in.”

Lewis hails from East St. Louis, IL, where he was a 3-star prospect at East Saint Louis High School, according to 247 Sports, ESPN and Rivals. On3 rated Lewis as a 4-star prospect.

Lewis began his college career in 2021 at UCLA, where he played in 11 games as a freshman but didn’t record any offensive stats. He transferred to Wisconsin in 2022 and made 20 receptions for 313 yards and three touchdowns. Then in 2023, the Badgers went through a coaching change, from Paul Chryst to Luke Fickell, and for whatever reason, Lewis fell out of favor. He caught just one pass for 12 yards, played in one game and announced he would enter the transfer portal in September of that season.

Lewis emerged the following winter at SIU, and had a standout season for the Salukis, catching 49 passes for 813 yards and scoring five touchdowns through the air.

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QB John Mateer
WR Isaiah Sategna
WR Javonnie Gibson
P Jacob Ulrich

DE Marvin Jones Jr.

TE Carson Kent

PK Austin Welch
LB Kendal Daniels
TE Will Huggins

In reality, Lewis’ football career has been a series of stops and starts ever since he was in high school.

He caught 32 passes for 802 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2019 as a junior at East Saint Louis in 2019, raising his career totals to 55 catches, 1,162 yards and 13 TDs. According to the 247 Sports Composite Rankings, Lewis was the 480th ranked player in the nation that year, No. 72 among wideouts, although 247 Sports had him No. 54 in their own rankings.

But then COVID happened, and his senior season was pushed back to spring of 2021 — too late for Lewis to play, because he enrolled a semester early at UCLA, where he played 208 offensive snaps as a freshman. But no senior season and zero receptions as a UCLA freshman in 2021 meant Lewis had gone two years without catching a football in a game. Then, he moved to Madison and started over again.

When it finally came, Lewis’ first college catch was a big one — a 40-yard reception from Graham Mertz on third down against Washington State.

Lewis finished that season playing 348 total offensive snaps for the Badgers, and it seemed like he was finally on his way.

But the coaching change at UW disrupted things again, and Lewis had also just become a father. Life was taking him on a path he hadn’t planned.

The next stop on that path, and maybe the best stop, was Carbondale, about 100 miles from East St. Louis. A year close to home, and a year getting back in the groove of catching passes, was good for Lewis.

According to Pro Football Focus, Lewis played 520 total snaps this season at the FCS school, 515 on offense. He ranked fifth in the Missouri Valley Conference last season with 73.9 yards per game, 11th in receptions and seventh in receiving yards.

Sooners On SI Transfer Portal Tracker

Lewis posted an overall PFF grade of 79.3, with an 80.4 as a receiver either catching the ball or running routes. On 78 targets, he only had four drops. He posted a single-game grade of 60 or better in 10 of 11 games (59.4 in the 11th), and surpassed 70 five times.

Lewis put up numbers at SIU last year despite an historic run of injuries to Saluki quarterbacks.

One QB, ET Harris, was hurt in training camp and missed the whole season. Starter DJ Williams suffered a finger injury early in the season. Hunter Simmons broke his leg at midseason. That left true freshman Jake Curry, but when he injured a hamstring late in the year, former Saluki QB Michael Lindauer, who was out of eligibility and had begun his coaching career as an SIU graduate assistant, got an NCAA waiver and finished the season. Lindauer was named Missouri Valley Conference Offensive Player of the Week when he threw a school-record seven touchdown passes in a 62-0 win over Missouri State in the season finale.

Lewis caught one of those touchdowns, a 65-yard strike in the second quarter. He finished with 104 yards and two TDs on five receptions.

That game was emblematic of Lewis’ season: no matter who was throwing him the football, Lewis was productive.

He had two catches for 49 yards against BYU in the opener, then had five for 53 against Austin Peay. He exploded for eight catches for 148 yards and a touchdown as well as a 57-yard rushing TD against Incarnate Word, then caught five for 61 against Southeast Missouri. In a blowout loss to South Dakota, Lewis made three catches for 88 yards and a TD, and in a blowout loss to Illinois State, he exploded again with seven catches for 153 yards. In yet another blowout loss to North Dakota State, Lewis caught three passes for 36 yards, and in a loss to Indiana State, he had five catches for 39 yards and a score. In the penultimate game of the year, he made six catches for 59 yards against South Dakota State.

Lewis’ season included catches of 65, 60, 50, 44 and 43 yards, and he added 10 rushes for 121 yards.

“Keontez, was just, he had an ability to just walk in every practice, whenever he was in, and make every rep just look magnificent, in my eyes and really in everyone else's eyes, because of just how gifted he was, how quick he was with the speed and athleticism,” Martin told Sooners On SI. “But really, that's really not what everyone talked about. I mean, everyone was blown away by how good he was, and everyone knew there's nobody at this level, especially at the FCS level, that can guard this dude when he just turns on the jets.

“But it’s really who he was in the locker room. That's why it was a blow when he left, because everybody really loved being around him.”

Lewis is on campus and working out with his new teammates, so he’s probably already begun to fit in.

That might not be hard on the field, as the Sooners are in full rebuild mode at wide receiver after a disastrous 2024 season.

Of the 27 OU players who entered the transfer portal and left the team, six — Jaquaize Pettaway, Nic Anderson, J.J. Hester, Jalil Farooq, Andrel Anthony and Brenen Thompson — were wide receivers. Junior Jayden Gibson missed all of last year with an ACL injury and is expected to be back this season.

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Because of all that, as well as inconsistencies at quarterback and ragged play across the offensive line, OU’s offense ranked 119th in the nation in passing yards last season.

So Lewis and the other newcomers — Arkansas-Pine Bluff’s Javonnie Gibson, Arkansas’ Isaiah Sategna and Cal’s Josiah Martin — have a real opportunity to break out in Norman this year alongside returners Deion Burks, Jacob Jordan, Ivan Carreon, Zion Kearney and Zion Ragins.

Martin said he expects that Lewis may have to work on his conditioning moving forward.

“He had a lot of cramping issues,” Martin said. “ … There were many weeks where K-Lew couldn't go in the second half.”

Lewis’ lean, twitchy frame may have been both a blessing and a curse at times as it related to hydration and endurance.

“A little bit of a struggle for him to stay in Missouri Valley football games,” Martin said. “And I don't think it needs to be explained, you know, if you're having issues at times getting into the third and fourth quarter in FCS games, there'll be a much different story once you get to the SEC level. … That was the only knock that he had, and if you watched him from this past year, was man, there were a lot of games where he was absent in the second half, and a lot of that had to do with just physically, he wasn't able to stay on the field.

“I know he will — he'll attack the weight room, all that kind of stuff, to get himself in better shape.”

Martin said pretty much everyone in Carbondale is happy that Lewis is getting another shot at the big-time at Oklahoma and they’re glad he was a Saluki for a year.

“Teammates loved him,” Martin said. “Everything about him, from his personality — he just, I want to say his son is, like two years old, maybe, maybe just over a year old, so he recently has been a dad and brought his son around the team, and I know they all really loved when he would do that and kind of get to know his family a bit and just — just a great kid.

“I mean, I say great kid, but a really good man, and his teammates loved him. I think that's the number one thing that people would say about Keontez — more than anything, they just absolutely loved him as a teammate.

“He's going to make your program better. He's going to make the team better. Would you love to have him for another year? Absolutely, we would. He's clearly one of the best players on our roster, one of the best players in the league. I would be surprised if he's not one of the best players for Oklahoma.”