Under the leadership of head coach Lincoln Riley, the Oklahoma Sooners are coming off two spectacular college football seasons, which include two trips to the College Football Playoff and two different Heisman Trophy winners. But can they get back-to-back No. 1 overall picks too?
Quarterback Kyler Murray is looking like he’ll follow Baker Mayfield in yet another way, as several mock drafts anticipate he’ll be the top overall pick. Murray led Oklahoma’s prolific offense during the 2018 season, and it finished the year No. 1 in the nation.
So with the NFL Draft just days away, we’re looking at the best prospects from the top schools. The Sooners finished No. 4 in the Coaches Poll this season, so here’s a look at their draft class and where each player is expected to go.
Kyler Murray, quarterback
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Since the 2018 Heisman Trophy winner decided to enter the NFL Draft over playing baseball for the Oakland A’s — he was the ninth overall pick in last year’s MLB Draft — he’s been the most talked about prospect. And several NFL mock drafts project he’ll be the No. 1 overall pick to the Arizona Cardinals — including breakdowns from For The Win (although he’d go to the Oakland Raiders in a trade), USA TODAY Sports, NFL.com, Pro Football Focus and ESPN — which would make him the Sooners’ second straight top pick after Baker Mayfield.
Questions about Murray’s height have also dominated the conversation surrounding him, and although he did not work out at the NFL combine, he was measured at 5-foot-10 1/8 and 207 pounds. In part because of his size, he’s been compared to Russell Wilson, but some people aren’t worried about his stature.
As New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton previously explained about Murray:
“Having watched four games [of his] … you don’t feel [his height] being a deficiency when you watch him play. Man, he’s explosive. He’s one of those players, as [John] Madden used to say, he was never ‘it’ [in tag]. It’s so hard to rush him because he can flush to the right and make a play, flush to the left. You do feel poise that he plays with.
“His film is too good. It’s too good. I like him.”
Murray is a dynamic, mobile quarterback who finished the 2018 season with a 69.0 completion percentage and 4,361 passing yards (11.6 average), 42 passing touchdowns and seven interceptions. But he also added 1,001 rushing yards (7.2 yards per carry) and 12 rushing touchdowns. For the second straight year, the Sooners finished with the top offense in the nation, in large part thanks to Murray’s acumen and ability to make a big play, even when scrambling.
At Oklahoma’s pro day, Murray still didn’t participate in any agility or speed testing, including the 40-yard dash, but one Oklahoma assistant speculated that the quarterback would have ended up in the 4.3-second range, USA TODAY Sports reported last month.
Marquise Brown, wide receiver
(AP Photo/Alonzo Adams)
Though not a lock like Murray, it seems likely that “Hollywood” Brown will be another first-round pick out of Oklahoma. And if not, he’s surely looking at being a high second-rounder. FTW’s consensus mock draft puts Brown’s average predicted pick at 27.8 with both ESPN’s Todd McShay and USA TODAY Sports‘ Nate Davis speculating he’ll go as high as No. 19 to the Tennessee Titans. Davis explained:
The quicksilver cousin of Antonio Brown would be a better game-breaking complement to Tennessee WR Corey Davis than one of this draft’s bigger wideouts.
Other mock drafts have the 5-foot-9, 166-pound wide receiver being selected at No. 25 to the Philadelphia Eagles (NFL.com) or being the first pick in the second round at No. 33 to join Murray with the Arizona Cardinals (ESPN’s Mel Kiper).
The discrepancy in where Brown will be drafted could be the result of undergoing foot surgery for a Lisfranc injury in January. Because of that, he did not participate in the NFL combine or Oklahoma’s pro day, but he’s still considered one of the top wide receiver prospects.
Working in tandem with Murray, Brown was the Sooners’ top receiver this season with 1,318 yards (17.6 average) for 10 touchdowns. He’s projected to be an instant starter regardless of which team drafts him.
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Cody Ford, guard
(AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
The 6-foot-4, 329-pound guard has the potential to be a third first-round draft pick from Oklahoma. He’s projected to be as high as a mid-first-rounder or falling somewhere in the early or mid-second round. However, three different draft experts — FTW’s Steven Ruiz, NFL.com’s Daniel Jeremiah and USA TODAY Sports‘ Nate Davis — predict the Houston Texans will draft Ford at No. 23. As Jeremiah explained: “With their pass-protection woes, the Texans have to take the best available offensive lineman.”
Ford ran a 5.21-second 40-yard dash at the NFL combine and put up 19 bench-press reps. He also recorded a 28.5-inch vertical and a 104-inch broad jump.
More on Ford from NFL.com draft analyst Lance Zierlein:
Ford offers a rare combination of physical and athletic traits that will have NFL teams dreaming of his upside. He is raw and relatively inexperienced as a starting tackle with exploitable holes that will need to be patched before he can thrive in the pros. As a tackle, he’s a developmental, high-risk/reward talent.
Bobby Evans, offensive tackle
(Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports)
The 6-foot-4, 312-pound tackle has a chance to become an NFL starter and is projected to go somewhere between the third and fourth rounds of the draft. ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper predicts the Los Angeles Chargers will select Evans late in the third round at No. 91.
At the NFL combine, Evans ran a 5.2-second 40-yard dash and did 22 bench-press reps, which was outside the top-30 offensive linemen. NFL.com analyst Lance Zierlein broke down Evans’ strengths:
Three-year starter with tackle experience on both sides who plays with excellent core strength, good hand placement and a noticeable nasty streak. Evans is below average as an athlete but makes up for it with upper-body power and solid technique.
Dru Samia, guard
(Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports)
This 6-foot-5, 305-pound guard is also looking like a third- to fourth-round pick, and Kiper predicts he’ll toe that line with the Washington Redskins drafting him at No. 96.
The senior from Oklahoma ran a 5.29-second 40 and put up 28 reps on bench press, which ranked him No. 6 and No. 12, respectively, among offensive linemen. NFL.com praises him as a “vocal leader” but notes that “core strength and body control at the point of attack must be improved in order to survive against NFL power.”
Rodney Anderson, running back
(Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports)
The 6-foot, 224-pound running back was once considered to be at least a second-round pick, but he was not able to participate in most exercises at the NFL combine or Oklahoma’s pro day because of a torn ACL from the second game of the 2018 season. Still, he did 25 bench-press reps at the combine — which was fourth-best among running backs — and at the Sooners pro day, he estimated that he’ll “be 100 percent ready on the field by late June or early July,” per The Oklahoma Daily.
But not being able to play this season surely impacted his draft stock, and he’s now projected to be a fourth-round pick with potential to become a starter.
In 2017, Anderson led the Sooners with 1,161 yards (6.2 average) and 13 touchdowns. He also had 17 catches for 281 yards and five more touchdowns. He had 100 rushing yards and two touchdowns in Oklahoma’s first game of the season before getting injured in the second.
Ben Powers, guard
The 6-foot-4, 307-pound guard is looking like a fifth-round NFL Draft pick. According to NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein:
Powers has decent play strength and operates with solid technique but lacks the bend and athletic ability teams look for in a starting guard. He could be a backup guard with a chance to work his way up the ladder for a team who values force over finesse.
Oklahoma 2019 NFL Draft Prospects: Late picks and free agents
In addition to the Sooners’ solid list of projected early and middle draft picks, there are a few who could go late in the NFL Draft or end up as priority free agents. Kicker Austin Seibert (5-foot-9, 213 pounds) is looking like he could be a sixth- or seventh-round pick. In 2018 for Oklahoma, Seibert finished with an 89.5 field goal percentage and a 98.9 extra point percentage. Although he went 7-for-8 in the 30- to 39-yard range and 1-for-1 in the 40- to 49-yard range, he was 0-for-1 from at least 50 yards, lacking in a category NFL teams value most.
Linebacker Curtis Bolton (6 feet, 218 pounds) is projected to be either a seventh-round pick or a priority free agent with the potential to contribute on special teams. Defensive tackle Amani Bledsoe (6-foot-5, 280 pounds) is in the same situation and expected to be a seventh-round pick or a free agent, but he’s also expected to be in an NFL training camp this summer.
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