Oklahoma dealing with injuries to multiple key playmakers on offense
By Mark Kern
Published:
Oklahoma enters the 2025 season with a lot of optimism, and hopes that the offense is going to take a huge step forward. Offensive struggles plagued the team last year, as Sooners just weren’t able to develop any consistency on that side of the ball.
Brent Venables and his staff made it an added emphasis to be very aggressive in the transfer portal. The Sooners brought in 2 of the top offensive players in John Mateer and Jaydn Ott to help add some explosiveness on offense.
One of the issues for the offense last year was injuries, as the Sooners lost key skilled players early in the season for the entire year. Injuries are starting to once again pile up for Oklahoma’s offense, as the team is missing many key players from practice.
That’s according to a report from Rivals’ Parker Thune:
Ott and Deion Burks are 2 of the most important players for the Sooners offense.
Ott two years ago showed his potential at California, when he rushed for 1,305 yards and 12 touchdowns. However, injuries plagued him all throughout last season.
Burks is one of the best slot receivers in the country, and is dynamic when he has the ball in his hands. Last year, he had 31 catches for 345 yards and 3 touchdowns.
Kaden Helms, who is wearing a soft cast on his hand according to Thune, hasn’t put up big numbers in his first 2 seasons at Oklahoma, but the junior tight end is expected to be much more involved in the Sooners’ offensive attack this season.
It isn’t just the offense that is dealing with some injuries, as the defense is also missing some players in Gracen Halton and PJ Adebawore. Both of these guys warmed up, but didn’t participate in practice, per Thune.
