There are three new head coaches in the Big 12 and there will be a few new starting quarterbacks when the season kicks off in September. Only Oklahoma has both.
More than 75,000 fans showed up over the weekend for Oklahoma’s spring game, less than five months after the sudden departures of coach Lincoln Riley and two quarterbacks who had each flashed some Heisman Trophy potential during their short stays in Norman.
While quarterback depth may be a concern, new Sooners coach Brent Venables already has a proven starter in Dillon Gabriel, the redshirt junior transfer who threw for 8,037 yards with 70 touchdowns and only 14 interceptions at future Big 12 school UCF over the past three seasons.
”Been really pleased from beginning to end with Dillon and where he is,” Venables said. ”I’m looking at just the entire body, and his leadership and his consistency, and he’s done a great job all spring.”
Caleb Williams, who had replaced Spencer Rattler as Oklahoma’s starter early last season, followed Riley to Southern California. Rattler, who after a standout freshman season in 2020 went into last season considered a Heisman favorite, transferred to South Carolina this spring.
New TCU coach Sonny Dykes and Texas Tech’s Joey McGuire wrapped up their first spring drills without naming a starter, though both inherited multiple quarterbacks with starting experience.
Max Duggan has started 29 games at TCU over the past three seasons. When he was sidelined with a fractured bone in his foot last November, Chandler Morris had 531 yards of total offense (461 passing, 70 rushing), the second-best total in Frogs history, in a win over Baylor in his first start. Morris is an Oklahoma transfer and the son of Chad Morris, the coach Dykes succeeded at SMU after the 2017 season.
”The biggest takeaway for me is that we have some people who are capable of doing it. That’s the good thing,” said Dykes, known for having big-passing quarterbacks and whose offensive coordinator is Garrett Riley,…