Oklahoma spent the offseason trying to fix an offense that has to get a lot better if the Sooners want to get back to the College Football Playoff. And while every offensive spot outside of quarterback got some kind of makeover, the clearest upgrade on paper might be at wide receiver.
That’s the group that lost Deion Burks, who finished with 620 receiving yards in 2025 before playing his final college game on Dec. 19 in Oklahoma’s CFP loss to Alabama. Burks flashed in that game, but his season was uneven overall.
He was held under 50 yards in eight of OU’s 13 games, and no other Sooners receiver topped 250 yards last year. That kind of production forced Oklahoma to attack the position hard.
The Sooners did exactly that in the transfer portal, bringing in Trell Harris from Virginia, Parker Livingstone from Texas and Mackenzie Alleyne from Washington State. Harris arrives with the most proven résumé of the bunch after earning All-ACC honors and posting 847 yards and five touchdowns last season.
Livingstone was a major part of Arch Manning’s passing game at Texas and finished 2025 with 516 yards and six touchdowns. Alleyne is the least established of the three, with 72 yards and a touchdown in his redshirt freshman season at WSU, but he already knows John Mateer and offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle from their time together in Pullman.
Isaiah Sategna gives the room a real headliner. After transferring from Arkansas, he became Oklahoma’s most reliable offensive threat in 2025, catching 67 passes for 965 yards and eight touchdowns. His speed created problems all season, and now he’s back in a receiver room that looks much deeper around him.
More often than not, Sategna, Harris and Livingstone should be the top target options. Alleyne gives the Sooners another usable piece, and Jer’Michael Carter also showed enough in 2025 to suggest he can help.
There’s also a chance Oklahoma gets more out of Elijah Thomas and Manny Choice on offense after both spent plenty of time in special teams roles last year. Brent Venables praised both players’ growth during spring ball, which could mean bigger offensive roles in 2026.
The freshmen could matter too. Bowe Bentley, Jayden Petit, Xavier Okwufulueze, Jahsiear Rogers and Daniel Odom are among the newcomers Oklahoma signed, and Rogers made a strong early impression in the spring game with 70 yards on five catches.
There are other offensive groups with a case. Oklahoma added Hayden Hansen, Jack Van Dorselaer and Rocky Beers at tight end and brought in Jason Witten as the new position coach. The offensive line also has reason for optimism with Michael Fasusi, Ryan Fodje and Eddy Pierre-Louis all another year into their development.
Still, if you’re looking for the safest bet to take a big step forward, wide receiver stands out. Between Sategna’s production, Harris’ All-ACC season and Livingstone’s numbers at Texas, Oklahoma has a much stronger-looking group than it did a year ago.
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Oklahomas history with five-star recruits has been a mixed bag since the Bob Stoops era, which is why any new wave of blue-chip commitments gets treated with a little more skepticism than celebration. The Sooners have had their share of headline names who arrived with enormous expectations and left without matching them, including quarterback Jackson Arnold, cornerback Brendan Radley-Hiles and receiver Theo Wease Jr., each serving as a reminder that recruiting rankings only tell part of the story once a player gets to Norman.
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Cale Gundy Just Deepened Oklahomas John Mateer Debate
John Mateers first season in Oklahoma came with enough flashes to keep the conversation alive, but it also left the Sooners with a hard question heading into the offseason. The quarterback showed early-season promise and has the kind of talent that can still shape the room, yet his 2025 run was uneven enough that outside voices have started revisiting what kind of player he really is when everything is not going smoothly.
Cale Gundy only added to that debate by pointing back to Mateers time at Washington State, where the former Oklahoma assistant said he had already seen reasons to worry about consistency. For a program trying to sort out its quarterback future, that matters because the discussion is no longer just about what Mateer did in one season, but whether the Sooners are looking at a player whose best stretches are good enough to build around while the rough patches keep showing up. [Read more 🡒]