There have been endless questions about who will quarterback the Sooners in the Alamo Bowl since starter Dillon Gabriel announced he was entering the transfer portal.
Dillon Gabriel? Or Jackson Arnold?
Who will quarterback the Oklahoma Sooners when OU plays Arizona in the Alamo Bowl on Dec. 28?
That’s the question Sooner Nation has been asking ever since Gabriel announced on Monday that he’s entering the NCAA Transfer Portal after two years in Norman.
On Thursday, OU head coach Brent Venables addressed the question from AllSooners.
“That hasn’t been finalized yet, so I’ll comment on that when it’s the appropriate time,” Venables said during a press conference from San Antonio to promote the Alamo Bowl.
Venables later added an interesting nugget.
“Dillon knows he was more than welcome to stay and compete and be the quarterback at the University of Oklahoma,” Venables said.
With Arnold as his backup, Gabriel passed for 3,660 yards and 30 touchdowns this season while completing 69.3 percent of his passes. He also rushed for 373 yards and 12 touchdowns and was among the NCAA leaders in almost every statistical category, including No. 3 in the nation in points responsible for per game (21.0). Gabriel ranks No. 4 in NCAA history with 154 total touchdowns passing and scoring.
But Arnold is a former 5-star prospect from Denton (TX) Guyer High School who was the 2021-22 Gatorade National Player of the Year. He committed to the Sooners in January 2022 and enrolled in January 2023 and quickly ascended the depth chart to Gabriel’s backup.
Gabriel, who transferred to OU in January 2022 after three seasons at Central Florida and passed for 3,168 yards and 25 touchdowns in 2022, never directly addressed his future before Monday, even though it was widely presumed he would only play two seasons at OU. His hope was to forego his final season of collegiate eligibility and enter the 2024 NFL Draft.
But the 5-foot-11, 200-pound Gabriel said on a radio interview with The Franchise this week that he was “bummed” about the draft projection he received from the NFL’s College Advisory Committee, and decided to utilize his final season of college football — but would play somewhere else.
Venables was also asked about whether Arnold’s arrival last year predetermined the length of Gabriel’s stay in Norman.
“Well, the only thing I would say, you know, it didn’t have anything to do with Jackson,” Venables said. “I think Dillon had every intention to go to the NFL in his mind. This was going to be his last season. He’s going to have a great year, put himself in position to go chase his dreams, you know, in the NFL.”
