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Oklahoma-Houston Preview: One Big Thing

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Oklahoma-Houston Preview: One Big Thing


NORMAN — One game into the 2024 college football season, No. 15-ranked Oklahoma is struggling with the one thing no team wants to endure.

Injuries.

And it’s not a lot of injuries all over the place. It’s a handful injuries at two positions: offensive line and wide receiver.

The Sooners have enough players to beat Houston this week. The Cougars were routed at home last week by UNLV, 27-7 and are 28-point underdogs against Oklahoma.

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But what of OU’s game next week against Tulane? The jury is still out on the Green Wave this year. With a new coach, new quarterback and new vision, Tulane beat FCS opponent Southeastern Louisiana 52-0 last week. There will be more clarity this week as Kansas State visits New Orleans on Saturday ahead of Tulane’s Sept. 14 trip to Norman.

After that, of course, No. 14 Tennessee comes to town.

So Oklahoma needs to get to work right away on fixing its problems — in this case, that means getting healthy at wideout and o-line, or at least getting better production from the replacements.

As always, the discussion begins up front.

Coach Brent Venables has already said he expects right tackle Jake Taylor to be back Saturday night. That alleviates some consternation over the blocking, as Taylor, a third-year player, won the starting job over Michigan State transfer Spencer Brown in the preseason. Brown, a two-year starter in East Lansing, is a good player, but clearly is still getting comfortable at OU and last week posted an overall offensive grade of 58.1, according to Pro Football Focus, which included a pass-blocking grade of 49.4 and a run-blocking grade of 60.1. Those both need to be closer to 70. 

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Taylor’s return would mean USC transfer Michael Tarquin can stay at left tackle this week, which means third-year player Jacob Sexton can stay at left guard. Sources have indicated that was the Sooners’ best combination on the left side during training camp.

Venables offered a little less insight on the center position, where he said Monday that starter and SMU transfer Branson Hickman “looked remarkably good” without confirming that Hickman was actually back at practice fighting through an ankle sprain. 

Hickman’s first-quarter injury last week wasn’t a massive setback. If there was a championship or playoff berth on the line, maybe Hickman could have stayed in the game. And his replacements weren’t bad. But there was no reason to push the envelope against a team like Temple.

If Hickman is back, that means backup guard and Washington transfer Geirean Hatchett won’t be pressed into emergency action with his own arm injury to deal with. It also means maybe second-year center Joshua Bates can get some more quality snaps this week (he played 16 snaps there last week, per PFF).

And maybe it means another week “closer,” as Venables put it, for senior Troy Everett, who played 311 offensive snaps at center and guard last season and gave up just one quarterback hit, two hurries, three pressures and no sacks. Everett is working his way back from a knee injury sustained during spring practice.

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Good play at center, Venables said, is a priority.

“Having somebody available there is really important,” he said. “So we’re working through that. I like where we’re at from that standpoint and I expect us to only get better there.”

Hard as it may be to believe, things are actually quite a bit darker at the wideout position.

Purdue transfer Deion Burks caught three short touchdown passes last week against Temple and tends to make it look easy. As such, he papers over a lot of problems.

Once considered the Sooners’ deepest and probably most talented position on the team, the new reality is stark — and has only gotten worse since the start of training camp.

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Former Michigan transfer Andrel Anthony was WR1 early last year but is still coming back from a 2023 midseason knee injury. He made just one catch last week for 4 yards, and his contributions this season will be limited until probably October or even November.

Then big-play junior Jayden Gibson went down early in camp with a knee injury that will cost him the entire season. He averaged 27 yards per catch last year and scored five touchdowns.

Then last week, after hauling in a 47-yard deep ball on the second play of the game, senior Jalil Farooq suffered a broken foot — a re-break of the injury that knocked him out of spring practice. Farooq’s career numbers have been impactful: 87 catches, 1,276 yards and seven scores.

Third-year sophomore Nic Anderson also missed last week’s game with an undisclosed injury that limited him in preseason camp, and Venables said Monday he was “hopeful” that Anderson could be back this week (although it would seem wise to bring him back slowly, if at all, against Houston). Anderson led the nation in yards per catch for most of last season and hauled in 10 touchdowns. His health and big-play presence against the rest of the Southeastern Conference is paramount.

Replacements J.J. Hester and Brenen Thompson committed three drops last week and need to show coaches that they’re ready for the moment.

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Oklahoma struggled to run the football early against Temple, averaging just 4.1 yards in the first half and getting stuffed eight times for gains of 2 yards or less. Only a 30-yard run by Tennessee-Martin transfer Sam Franklin and runs of 19 and 35 by freshman Taylor Tatum late in the game skewed the yards-per-carry to an acceptable 6.2.

And with quarterback Jackson Arnold enduring three sacks, he only averaged 8.1 yards per completion. Other than Farooq’s catch, Arnold’s longest completion was just 14 yards. 

If Taylor and Hickman return this week, both the pass blocking and run blocking will improve, and then the Sooners can work on developing consistency and chemistry up front with their best starting five.

And when that happens, if Anderson comes back and Anthony continues to heal, Arnold and the OU passing game will get better, too.

Assuming no one else on the o-line or at receiver gets hurt.

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Oklahoma State expected to lose talented EDGE to transfer portal

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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.

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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.

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Oklahoma man doing target practice in back yard charged in fatal shooting of neighbor

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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.

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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.

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“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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Oklahoma man accused of shooting neighbor dead during Christmas target practice

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Oklahoma man accused of shooting neighbor dead during Christmas target practice


What began as Christmas Day target practice in an Oklahoma neighborhood ended in tragedy when a stray bullet fatally struck an elderly woman as she sat on her front porch holding a baby.

Cody Wayne Adams, 33, has been charged with first-degree manslaughter after firing the fatal shot, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by ABC News.

The woman, whose identity was not disclosed, was sitting on the front porch with family members at a home on County Road 1800 on Thursday afternoon when she was shot from several blocks away, the Stephens County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release.

According to the affidavit, the victim was seated on a love seat and holding a baby in her left arm when she was struck in her right upper arm. The bullet then entered her chest cavity.

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Family members told the responding deputy that they had heard someone firing five to seven gunshots and that the victim had “commented that someone got a new gun for Christmas” and shortly afterward “said ‘ouch’ and collapsed,” the affidavit stated.

Cody Wayne Adams, 33, has been charged with first-degree manslaughter after he allegedly shot and killed an elderly woman a few blocks from his home

Cody Wayne Adams, 33, has been charged with first-degree manslaughter after he allegedly shot and killed an elderly woman a few blocks from his home (Stephens County Sheriff’s Office)

As investigators canvassed nearby properties north of the shooting, deputies found that all but one home had “suitable shooting backstops or firing locations,” according to the affidavit. The only exception was Adams’s home.

Adams allegedly told deputies that he had been shooting a Glock 45 he recently bought for himself for Christmas, using a Red Bull can as a target in his backyard, according to the affidavit.

When a deputy told Adams he suspected the shooting may have caused the woman’s death, Adams “became visibly upset and began to cry,” the affidavit stated.

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Adams made his first court appearance Friday. A judge set his bond at $100,000, according to online court records. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for February 26, 2026.



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