Oklahoma
Ambiguity Swirls Oklahoma Kicker Battle Inside 10 Days From Season-Opener
NORMAN — Do you know who’s starting at kicker for the Oklahoma Sooners next Friday? If so, pass that information along to Brent Venables’ office.
By Tuesday night, the competition pitting incumbent Zach Schmit against Florida State transfer Tyler Keltner had yielded no more clarity than it did when Keltner arrived in Norman during the spring. All Venables revealed Tuesday was that it had trimmed to the two — no mention of freshman sensation Liam Evans, who was a Kohl’s Kicking 5-star.
“[I] love where we’re at in the kicking game right now,” Venables told media near Memorial Stadium’s south end zone. “Still have a battle there with our placekickers. That’ll go through the end of this week and then we’ll make a decision. Really feel like we would need both guys potentially this season. Zach’s got a really big leg, and he’s really good at the kickoffs. . . Liam Evans has done some good things there.”
SoonerScoop’s George Stoia reported that Venables called Keltner the “odds on favorite” to win the job four weeks ago. It isn’t clear if that has changed.
Schmit hit 15-of-21 field goals last year (71.4 percent), good for sixth best in the Big 12, and hit a long of 46 yards. Fifty of his 93 kickoffs resulted touchbacks. His running streak of 124 made extra point attempts ranks fifth in program history. But — his struggles to connect on crucial kicks prompted the Sooners’ staff to bring on Keltner, a fifth-year senior who cut his teeth at the FCS level for four years, earned first team All-SoCon nods at East Tennessee State each of his last two seasons, then moved home to Tallahassee to back up Ryan Fitzgerald at Florida State.
“The competition will help bring out the best in everybody is my expectation, so Tyler Keltner and Liam Evans will have a chance to come in here and make us better that way,” Venables said in March.
The Sooners open the season Friday, Aug. 30 against Temple. Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m. If the Sooners kick first, it will likely be by Schmit’s leg. Keltner could be the field goal guy. Oklahoma fans could see a different specialist starting at kickoff, field goal and punt for the first time since Nick Hodgson, Michael Hunnicut and Jed Barnett split duties in 2014. Luke Elzinga appears to be Venables’ Week 1 starter.
In the April 20 Spring Game, Keltner missed his lone attempt from 44 and Schmit hit his only try from 29. All three kickers were 2-of-2 on touchbacks and 2-of-2 on PATs.
Special teams analyst Doug Deakin will be able to coach both at practice and from the sideline under the NCAA’s new rules. Should either kicker struggle — or both — Deakin will be able to consult players directly and make a switch should it become necessary.
“It gives you a chance to really make some improvement in the areas that you need to,” Venables said. “But that’s been a lot of fun. Doug’s incredibly passionate, high energy, really smart, great teacher, inspires and motivates as good as any coach as I’ve been around. The players have tremendous respect for him and he’s just a really effective communicator. So I expect us to improve from where we were.”
Oklahoma
Capture of Nicolas Maduro: What it could mean for Oklahoma
Elite Delta Force captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife about 2 a.m. Saturday morning.
It happened in the Caracas, the capitol of Venezuela.
Social media posts how strikes ordered by President Trump into Venezuela and its military bases.
News 9 political analyst Scott Mitchell said the relationship between the U.S. and Latin America has not always been smooth and adds so many dominos will fall as a result.
“Venezuela is the beachhead for our adversaries that’s Cuba and Russia and China and Iran and it looks as if this latest situation where that they were assembling Iran swift attack boats that was sort of the last straw,” said Mitchell.
Retired war correspondent Mike Boettcher said the planning on capturing Maduro began in mid-December.
He adds Venezuela is a massive oil supplier whose oil has been taken off the market for years because of sanctions.
He has concerns about what comes next.
“That disrupts a lot of things.It even has an effect on the war in Ukraine, as Russia, you know, has used higher oil revenue because Venezuela’s oil was off the market.Oil prices went up.It helps fund the war in Ukraine,” said Boettcher.
The ramifications could even reach Oklahoma.
“China gets a 30 percent discount on the oil.If Venezuela goes for a more legitimate government and the sanctions are lifting, then they’re flooding the oil markets and that means bad news for the Oklahoma economy,” added Mitchell.
Following the capture of Maduro, President Trump said the U.S. will take control of the oil reserves in Venezuela.
Sources also say there are plans from the current administration to recruit American companies to invest billions of dollars in their oil industry.
A verified video shows the current state of Venezuela after the military operation.
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State expected to lose talented EDGE to transfer portal
Oklahoma State EDGE Kyran Duhon plans to enter the NCAA transfer portal, On3 has learned. Duhon was a member of the 2024 recruiting class.
Duhon spent one year at Oklahoma State, logged 16 total tackles (eight solo) across nine games. He began his career at UTEP, where he had a productive true freshman season, Duhon finished 2024 with 43 total tackles, including seven sacks and two PBUs.
At UTEP, his one season there resulted in second team All-Conference USA honors. He was also named to the On3 True Freshman All-America Team as well as the the Conference USA All-Freshman team.
However, Duhon’s stay in Stillwater didn’t go as expected. Oklahoma State finished the season with a 1-11 record, which included the Cowboys firing longtime head coach Mike Gundy after a 1-2 start. Doug Meacham was named interim head coach but ended the year 0-9.
Eric Morris has since been named as the program’s next head coach. He comes from North Texas, which finished with an 11-2 record and a trip to the American Conference championship game this past season. However, it doesn’t appear that Duhon will be sticking around during the changing of the guard at Oklahoma State this offseason.
Before college, Duhon was the No. 1,706 overall player in the class, and was recruited as the the No. 165 linebacker during the cycle, per the Rivals Industry Rankings, which is a proprietary algorithm that compiles ratings and rankings from all four primary recruiting media services. He was ranked as the No. 242 overall player out of Texas.
Once the NCAA transfer portal opens on Jan. 2, players can officially enter their names in the NCAA transfer portal and go on to initiate contact with their preferred schools. The portal will be open for 15 days and close on Jan. 16.
Notably, players who are on teams competing in the national championship game are allowed five extra days to make their portal decision. The College Football Playoff championship game will be played on Jan. 19, so the players on those teams will be allowed until Jan. 24 to enter the portal and choose their next school.
To keep up with the latest players on the move, check out On3’s Transfer Portal wire. The On3 Transfer Portal Instagram account and Twitter account are excellent resources to stay up to date with the latest moves.
Oklahoma
Oklahoma man doing target practice in back yard charged in fatal shooting of neighbor
A man in Oklahoma is facing a manslaughter charge after he allegedly shot a woman several blocks from his home while firing a gun he got himself for Christmas at an energy drink can in his back yard.
As told in court documents reviewed by NBC News, the death of Sandra Phelps at the hands of Cody Wayne Adams illustrates how deadly the consequences can be when those engaging in the US’s prevalent gun culture do so unsafely. Adams’s back yard was not equipped to stop bullets from leaving the property and striking unsuspecting people in the surrounding area, according to authorities.
Phelps was sitting under a covered porch with family on Christmas and holding a child in her arms when they heard gunshots north of the house, said an affidavit laying out the circumstances of Adams’s arrest.
“Sandra commented that someone got a new gun for Christmas and then shortly after Sandra said ‘ouch’ and collapsed,” the affidavit said. It said there were no more gunshots after that.
Emergency personnel were dispatched to Phelps’s address at about 3.15pm Thursday, the Stephens county sheriff’s office said in a statement.
“We later received a call stating an individual had just received a gun for Christmas and was target practicing in his backyard and that they believed it would be pointing in the direction of the scene,” the sheriff’s office statement added.
“Investigators went to the reported address and spoke with an individual [who] confirmed he was shooting a target in his back yard and that he had heard that someone has died from a gunshot wound a couple of roads over.”
That individual was Adams, 33, who showed deputies a Red Bull can in his back yard that he had been shooting with his handgun, according to the affidavit justifying his arrest.
Authorities allegedly concluded that the vantage point from where Adams was shooting aligned with the angle of the bullet that killed Phelps. They also determined the home lacked a suitable shooting backstop meant to protect those in the surrounding area from being struck by stray bullets.
“Adams became visibly upset and began to cry” when he learned of Phelps, the affidavit added. He was arrested on a count of first-degree manslaughter and later released on a $100,000 bond.
In the US, unintentional deaths from firearms are a small percentage of gun deaths in the country. But they occur four times more often in the US than in comparable countries – and most involve a handgun.
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