Why Oklahoma DE Marvin Jones Jr. Believes Sooners Have Championship Potential

NORMAN — As Oklahoma makes its final push for the College Football Playoff, defensive end Marvin Jones Jr. knows what it takes to make a run at the national title.

Jones, an edge rusher who transferred to OU before the 2025 season, played for Georgia in 2022, when the Bulldogs won the national championship. Georgia defeated TCU 65-7 in the CFP National Championship Game that year to finish the season 15-0.

The Sooners are fresh off back-to-back road wins against Tennessee and Alabama after a stretch where they lost two of three games. OU is now 8-2 and almost certainly in control of its own CFP destiny.

Jones believes that team togetherness has allowed the Sooners to stay in the mix despite their rough middle-of-the-year stretch.

“It’s just a brotherhood, man,” Jones said. “It’s so special to see. You don’t really have any individuals on the team.”

The long-standing cliche goes that “defense wins championships.” And Jones believes that to be true.

Jones was part of a Georgia defense in 2022 that allowed only 296.8 total yards and 14.3 points per game. The Bulldogs also registered 91 tackles for loss and 35 sacks in their 15 wins.

The defensive end now plays for a similarly stellar defense. Through 10 games, Oklahoma is ninth in scoring defense (14.8 points allowed per game) and 11th in total defense (278.4 yards allowed per game).

Jones draws plenty of parallels between OU’s defensive grit and that of Georgia’s defense when he won a national title.

“The physicality definitely pops off first to me,” Jones said. “In that Georgia defense, that’s something (Georgia coach Kirby Smart) definitely prided the defense on. I think that’s something that we have here.”

Oklahoma’s defense has been brilliant overall. But it hasn’t been perfect.

In the Sooners’ 23-6 loss to Texas on Oct. 11, they allowed the Longhorns to convert on 10 of their 17 third-down tries. Oklahoma allowed Ole Miss to log 431 offensive yards and convert on 11 third and fourth downs, and that helped the Rebels earn their 34-26 win over the Sooners.

The Sooners have one of the best defenses in college football. But they’ll have to be even better to make a run at the College Football Playoff.

From his own first-hand experience, Jones knows that steady growth is necessary for a team to win a national championship.

“None of us graded out 100 on the grade sheet after the (Alabama) game, so there are always things to improve on,” Jones said. “I think that’s it. Our coaches let us know that nobody played a perfect game.”

Oklahoma will host Missouri on Saturday before battling LSU in Norman for the Sooners’ regular-season finale on Nov. 29.