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WATCH: Observations, Highlights from Oklahoma's Wednesday Open Practice

Sooners On SI's video highlights of Wednesday's spring practice session that was open to the media.
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Oklahoma Sooners: Spring Football Open Practice (4-9-25)
Oklahoma Sooners: Spring Football Open Practice (4-9-25)

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NORMAN — Brent Venables opened a brief portion of Oklahoma’s spring football practice on Wednesday.

But it was enough to all but officially confirm all the bad news reported this week.

The Sooners’ wide receiver group is once again short of players.

Transfers Javonnie Gibson, Isaiah Sategna and Keontez Lewis were all absent from the 12-minute individual position drills session of the early stages of practice.

OU Insider’s Parker Thune reported on Monday that Gibson, a transfer from Arkansas-Pine Bluff, had suffered a broken leg in Monday’s practice. That was also reported by SoonerScoop’s George Stoia on Tuesday.

Injuries to Sategna and Lewis have not been disclosed.

The Sooners wide receiver corps was similarly gutted last fall as the team's five leading returning receivers — Jayden Gibson, Nic Anderson, Jalil Farooq, Andrel Anthony and Brenen Thompson — all suffered season-ending injuries, and Burks, the team's top transfer in 2024, was also forced to miss major stretches of action due to injury. Jayden Gibson has also missed all of this spring with what Venables termed last month as a "small setback."

Venables is expected to meet with the media for the first time this spring following Wednesday’s practice, which is scheduled to conclude around 6:15 p.m.

The Sooners will wrap up this year’s spring practice session on Saturday when they host the inaugural Crimson Combine from 12:30-3:30 on Owen Field. The Crimson Combine takes the place of the traditional Red/White Game.

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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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