The Oklahoma Sooners are heading into the 2026 season with serious buzz around Brent Venables’ roster, and two of the program’s biggest names just picked up major preseason recognition.
Defensive tackle David Stone and kicker Tate Sandell were both named first-team selections on CBS Sports’ All-American team, giving Oklahoma a pair of honorees with the regular season still a little more than a couple of weeks away.
Stone has become one of the most talked-about defensive tackles in college football, and the preseason attention keeps piling up. He landed on a number of watch lists over the summer and is already being projected as a first-round pick in the 2027 NFL Draft.
His 2025 season backed up the hype: he played in all 13 games, led Oklahoma defensive tackles with 454 snaps, finished fourth on the team in total pressures, and tied for third in stops, according to Pro Football Focus. The expectation is that his impact only grows in 2026.
Sandell’s selection comes after a season that already put him in elite company. The Sooners’ kicker returned after winning the Lou Groza award as the nation’s best at the position, then missed his first kick of the year before rattling off 24 straight makes. That stretch included a perfect 7-for-7 effort in road wins over Tennessee and Alabama during Oklahoma’s “Hard to Kill” run in November.
CBS Sports left some other Sooners off its first and second teams, including All-SEC performers Taylor Wein and Isaiah Sategna, players who could have made a case for inclusion.
Even so, Oklahoma’s roster is loaded. Between Wein and Sategna, Eli and Peyton Bowen, and quarterback John Mateer, the Sooners have plenty of players with a chance to work their way into All-American conversations by the end of 2026.
In Other News...
Deland McCullough Is Raising The Bar For Oklahomas RB Room
Since arriving in Norman in February, Deland McCullough has quickly become one of the more important additions to Oklahomas staff. The running backs coach brings a resume that stretches from Notre Dame, Indiana and USC to the NFL, and he has stepped into a room that mixes proven talent with a player still working his way back. Xavier Robinson and Tory Blaylock give the Sooners experience in the backfield, while junior Andy Bass is trying to get healthy after ACL injuries.
What makes McCulloughs arrival especially notable is the belief around the program that he can elevate the entire running game, not just one back at a time. Oklahomas offensive coordinator and quarterback have both pointed to his track record and know-how as reasons to feel good about where the position is headed, with the bigger expectation being that the Sooners ground attack can take a meaningful step forward by the 2026 season. [Read more 🡒]
Oklahoma Just Made Its Brent Venables Bet Even Bigger
Brent Venables is no longer operating on a short leash in Norman. Oklahoma has locked in its head coach with a two-year extension, giving the program a clearer long-term commitment to the man it hired from Clemson in December 2021 after a decade as the Tigers defensive coordinator. Venables has gone 32-20 in four seasons and guided the Sooners back to the College Football Playoff last year, enough for the school to keep betting on the direction he has built.
The timing says plenty about where Oklahoma sees itself, too. The program is weighing recent inconsistency against the kind of ceiling Venables showed in that playoff run, and now it has doubled down on that vision rather than treat last season as a one-off. For a fan base used to chasing national relevance, the move makes the next stretch of Venables tenure even more consequential. [Read more 🡒]
Sooners Just Got A Major SEC Respect Boost Across The Roster
The SEC coaches preseason team gave Oklahoma another clear sign of where the program stands as it heads deeper into its first year of conference life. Ten Sooners were recognized across 13 spots on the 2026 Preseason Coaches All-SEC Team, with Tate Sandell and Ben Anderson landing first-team honors after already being featured on the preseason media team earlier in the summer.
The full list of selections also underscores how widely Oklahoma is being viewed inside the league, since the voting came from SEC head coaches who could not cast ballots for their own players. Sandell and Anderson were the only Sooners on the first team, while the rest of the group filled out second-team spots, a breadth of respect that should only add to the intrigue around how Oklahoma stacks up once the season starts. [Read more 🡒]