The first-ever SEC season for Oklahoma is drawing near. The Sooners will play their first game in their new league against Temple at home on August 30, a rare Friday night at Owen Field. The team will begin play in their new league in just over three months.
Naturally, Tennessee—and its coach, former Oklahoma quarterback and former offensive coordinator Josh Heupel—will not play in the SEC until a few weeks later, on September 21. With that game, Oklahoma will begin a punishing first SEC schedule. According to ESPN’s SP+, the Sooners enter the season with the nation’s third-strongest schedule.
Six teams, including five that concluded the season inside the top-12, are among the teams the Sooners will face in the final AP top-25 rankings. This features Missouri, Ol Miss, and LSU in addition to Texas and Alabama, the semifinalists in the College Football Playoff. Oklahoma will host two of the six games this season, against Alabama and Tennessee (ranked No. 17 in the final AP poll from the previous season). OU will travel to Ole Miss, Missouri, and LSU for three SEC road games, while the Cotton Bowl in Dallas will host the yearly Red River Rivalry versus Texas.
Half of Oklahoma’s 2024 schedule consists of those six games. The other half consists of a road trip to Auburn in Week 5 that coincides with the team’s first of two bye weeks, and three straight nonconference home games against Temple, Houston, and Tulane to start the season. South Carolina will visit Oklahoma following the Red River Rivalry. After traveling to Ole Miss, OU will play its last nonconference game at home against FCS rival Maine two weeks from now. Between the travel to Missouri and the home match against Alabama before Brent Venables’ squad finishes the season at LSU, the Sooners get their second bye week.
In its inaugural season in the SEC, Oklahoma will surely face a daunting challenge. In order to get ready for the new campaign, let’s review those opponents and investigate the most significant offseason addition to each of the 12 clubs Oklahoma has scheduled via the transfer portal:
TEMPLE: TOREY RICHARDSON, CORNERBACK
A transfer from UTEP, Corey Richardson is rated as the No. 829 overall player and the No. 111 cornerback in the transfer portal this offseason. Richardson had 33 tackles, including three for a loss, along with eight pass breakups and an interceptions for UTEP last season while starting every game at cornerback.
HOUSTON: COREY PLATT JR., LINEBACKER
The No. 134 overall player and No. 11 linebacker in the 247Sports transfer portal rankings this offseason, Corey Platt Jr., moved from Tulane to Houston. At Tulane, he played in just one game the previous season before suffering an Achilles injury that required surgery and kept him out of action for the rest of the campaign. Platt started at linebacker in his one and only game for the Green Wave, recording 15 tackles and a sack. Platt moved to Houston during the offseason, following former Tulane coach Willie Fritz.
TULANE: MARIO WILLIAMS, WIDE RECEIVER
A well-known figure to Oklahoma supporters, Mario Williams started his playing career with the Sooners in 2021, hauling up 35 catches for 380 yards and four touchdowns. However, the following offseason, he followed Lincoln Riley to USC. Williams is on his third school two years later. He arrived to Tulane as the 31st-best wide receiver and the 158th overall athlete in this cycle’s transfer portal. Following a sophomore season in which he had 40 receptions for 631 yards and five touchdowns, he caught 29 passes for 305 yards and two scores for the Trojans last season.
TENNESSEE: LANCE HEARD, OFFENSIVE TACKLE
Lance Heard, a huge offensive tackle, comes to Tennessee from LSU, where as a freshman, he started one game at right tackle and had five appearances overall. He visited the portal during the first window in January and even went to Oklahoma before deciding to enroll in Tennessee. Currently ranked as the 20th player in the transfer portal this offseason, he was formerly a five-star prospect in the 2023 class, ranking as the nation’s third-best prospect overall and the 15th-best recruit that cycle.
AUBURN: KEANDRE LAMBERT-SMITH, WIDE RECEIVER
KeAndre Lambert-Smith, who began his career at Penn State, comes to Auburn ranked as the No. 70 overall player in the 247Sports transfer portal rankings. The Nittany Lions were his home for four seasons, and in 2023 he had his greatest season to date, leading the team with 53 receptions for 673 yards and four touchdowns. Playing both wide and in the slot last season, Lambert-Smith made five receptions out of eleven contested throws and had five drops on 85 targets.
TEXAS: ISAIAH BOND, WIDE RECEIVER
Following Nick Saban’s retirement in the spring, the former wide receiver from Alabama—who is most known for his game-winning score in the Iron Bowl last fall—transferred to Texas.Rated as the No. 5 player in the transfer portal this offseason, Isaiah Bond led the team in receptions and finished as Alabama’s second-leading receiver last season in terms of yardage. At an average of 19.2 yards per reception, he recorded 48 catches for 668 yards and four touchdowns. He now joins a Texas offense that is starting over with Xavier Worthy and Adonai Mitchell, its top two receivers from the previous campaign.
SOUTH CAROLINA: RAHEIM SANDERS, RUNNING BACK
After three seasons at Arkansas, Raheem Sanders went to South Carolina as the No. 4 available running back and the No. 54 overall athlete in the transfer portal this summer. In 2022, Sanders led the Razorbacks in rushing with 1,443 yards and 10 touchdowns on 222 runs, averaging 6.5 yards per attempt. He was one of the best running backs in collegiate football. After suffering a knee injury in Arkansas’ season opener, Sanders, a preseason All-American the previous year, was only able to play in six games this past season. With 18 starts across 32 games, he has run for 2,230 yards and 17 touchdowns in his career. He concluded the season with 209 yards and two scores on 62 carries.
OLE MISS: WALTER NOLEN, DEFENSIVE LINEMAN
The No. 4 player in the 247Sports transfer portal rankings is Walter Nolen, a transfer from Texas A&M. Last season, the 6-foot-4, 290-pound player started 10 of Texas A&M’s 12 games and recorded 37 stops, including 8.5 for a loss and four sacks. Before entering the portal in the offseason and arriving at Ole Miss as the star of Lane Kiffin’s top-ranked portal class, he recorded 16 total pressures and 21 stops (plays the other offense deemed unsuccessful).
MAINE: JOHN OLMSTEAD, OFFENSIVE GUARD
Maine, an FCS program, doesn’t have any incoming transfers ranked in the 247Sports transfer portal database this offseason, but the program did add a couple of key transfers this offseason. Chief among them was offensive lineman John Olmstead, a one-time four-star prospect who began his career at Notre Dame in 2019 before initially transferring to Lafayette, where he started all 12 games at right guard last season.
MISSOURI: CAYDEN GREEN, OFFENSIVE LINEMAN
Cayden Green, whose name is both well-known and somewhat painful for Oklahoma supporters, became the starting left guard for the Sooners halfway through the previous campaign and appeared to be a key member of the OU offensive line going forward. Green then unexpectedly departed the team during bowl preparations in December, went through the transfer portal, and eventually ended up at Missouri. This summer, the transfer portal ranks him as the No. 12 player. Before leaving in December, he played 568 total snaps while starting five games for OU at left guard.
ALABAMA: KADYN PROCTOR, OFFENSIVE TACKLE
One of the more interesting developments of the 2024 transfer portal cycle concerned Cadyn Proctor, an Alabama SEC champion who qualified for the College Football Playoffs the previous season before transferring to Iowa this spring. But in April, Proctor made a U-turn and went back to Alabama. Proctor is the best offensive tackle this summer and ranked No. 2 in the transfer portal. Proctor started all 14 games at left tackle for the Alabama Crimson Tide last season. He was an SEC All-Freshman pick and ranked as the No. 1 offensive lineman and No. 10 overall player in the 2023 recruiting cycle. After a brief stay at Iowa, he returned to Alabama, giving new Tide coach Kalen DeBoer a standout addition to the program’s third-ranked transfer portal haul this offseason.
LSU: JARDIN GILBERT, SAFETY
Following the termination of Jimbo Fisher and the hiring of Mike Elko as the new coach, the Aggies saw a number of players depart from Texas A&M, including Jardin Gilbert. Gilbert, a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is ranked as the No. 2 safety and the No. 28 player in the transfer portal. He played in 25 games over his three seasons at Texas A&M, including 12 starts. Before missing the rest of the season due to a shoulder injury, he started each of the Aggies’ first two games at free safety and recorded five tackles and a pass breakup.
