The Lone Star State has supplied countless football stars to the University of Oklahoma, but only 20 Oklahomans have gone south across the Red River and won a letter at Texas.
The football programs from the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma will face each other this Saturday for the 120th time in a rivalry that goes back to the 1900 season. There have been many memorable matchups and tightly-fought contests in the long-running series between the Longhorns and Sooners. 50 of the first 119 games in the series were decided by seven points or less. There have also been some far less dramatic games, with 17 of them ending with a team winning by 28 points or more.
Each school has supplied one of its alums as a head coach to the other. Texas’s 1901 team captain Mark McMahon was OU’s head coach for two seasons (1902-03). The most accomplished of all Longhorn head coaches was former Oklahoma quarterback Darrell Royal, who led Texas to three recognized national championships and 11 Southwest Conference titles in his 20 seasons leading the program (1957-76). A number of coaches have spent time at both schools as well. Mack Brown spent one season as Oklahoma’s offensive coordinator in 1984, and was later the Texas Longhorns’ head coach from 1998 to 2013. Jay Boulware and Jay Norvell worked at both Oklahoma and Texas as assistant coaches within the last decade.
Many high school football stars from Texas have crossed the Red River and had decorated college careers for Oklahoma, but comparatively few Sooner-bred athletes have been found on Longhorn rosters in the program’s now 131-year history, and only a small number of them were true standouts.
In this post, we’ll go through UT’s football history and look back at every Oklahoma high school product who won a letter with the Texas football program. This group includes: two men who grew up in Oklahoma before it was even a state, the only Olympic wrestler the University of Texas ever produced, a future pro baseball player, an All-American linebacker, the son of a future Super Bowl-winning coach, the son of an Oklahoma Sooner quarterback, and a World War II Navy veteran who would have looked at the number of colleges Casey Thompson has played football at and said, “Hold my beer.”
The following players will be listed chronologically according to the years in which they won their letters at Texas, with those years in parentheses.
Joseph Maytubby (1896) — Wapanucka (Rock Academy), Oklahoma
1897 Cactus yearbook
The first “Oklahoman” to play football at Texas did so a decade before Oklahoma was admitted to the union as the 46th state. Joseph Maytubby was born in what was then called Indian Territory and was of Chickasaw ancestry on his father’s side. He received his preparatory education at a boarding academy run by the Chickasaw Nation that was called the Chickasaw Rock Academy or Wapanucka Institute. It was located near the town of Wapanucka in southeast Oklahoma.
He spent his first college years at Trinity College in Durham, North Carolina, which was renamed Duke University in 1924. He played on Trinity’s football team in 1893 and 1894, and was regarded highly enough as a player that he was elected Trinity’s team captain for the 1895 season. But the college’s president disbanded the team before that season began, and Trinity College did not field a football team again until 1920.
He graduated from Trinity College in 1896 and moved to Texas later that year to attend UT as a law student. While in Austin, he also played on UT’s 1896 football team as a fullback and halfback. Maytubby’s exact birthdate was unknown even during his lifetime, though he was most likely born between 1868 and 1870, meaning he was between 26 and 28 years of age during his lone season playing football at Texas. A few years later he attended a game that Texas played against Vanderbilt in Dallas during the 1900 season, and The Texan‘s report after the game noted his presence and described him as “one of the best football players we ever had.”
I wrote a long piece about Joseph Maytubby three years ago at BON in the week between UT’s games against Oklahoma and Oklahoma State during the 2021 season.
Brodie Hamilton (1905-06) — Granite, Oklahoma
William Brodie Hamilton was born in Alabama in 1887, but primarily grew up in the southwest Oklahoma town of Granite, where his father worked as a physician. He was the valedictorian of the first graduating class of Granite High School in 1904. He went on to enroll at the University of Texas and was the regular starter at center on the football teams of 1905 and 1906 while weighing in at around 175 pounds. Like Joseph Maytubby, he grew up in pre-statehood Oklahoma, and played football at Texas before its team was commonly known as the “Longhorns”. He went on to attend law school at Cumberland University in Tennessee, and during a long legal career he was admitted to the bars of California, Missouri, and Oklahoma.
Ralph Hammonds (1927) — Hugo, Oklahoma
Ralph Hammonds graduated from Hugo High School in the southeastern Oklahoma town of Hugo in 1922 (shortly before his 16th birthday) and began his college career at Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State), but transferred to Texas during the Christmas break in 1924 after his family moved to San Antonio. He played for the UT varsity football team for just one unremarkable season as a backup guard in 1927, but he was a distinguished Longhorn athlete in two other sports. He competed with the Texas track & field team and broke the Southwest Conference record in the pole vault during the 1927 season, later finishing in a tie for 2nd in that event at the NCAA championships. But he is most notable for being the best wrestler that UT ever produced.
Texas still had a wrestling team when Hammonds was a student, though it was no longer a varsity sport there because there were no other Southwest Conference schools that participated in it. He was twice an AAU national wrestling champion in the 160-pound division, winning that weight class in 1925 and 1926. He was the NCAA runner-up in the 175-pound division in 1928, but won a spot on the U.S. Olympic team later that year and competed in the middleweight (174-pound) division of the freestyle wrestling contest at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, becoming just the second University of Texas athlete to compete in the Olympic Games.
Hammonds was inducted into the University of Texas Athletics Hall of Honor in 1992. I previously wrote about Hammonds three years ago in a Burnt Orange Nation post on UT’s two “forgotten Olympians”.
[Upcoming event plug: UT Kinesiology and Health Education professor Dr. Tolga Ozyurtcu will be giving the 2024 Littlefield Lecture on the afternoon of October 17 at the San Jacinto Residence Hall Multipurpose Room on the UT campus. The topic: “Forty Acres, Five Rings: A Historical Celebration of Longhorn Olympians”. I highly recommend the event to any who are interested in Longhorn sports history and are able to attend. I can’t speak for Dr. Ozyurtcu’s plans regarding the athletes he will cover, but my guess is there’s a good chance Ralph Hammonds will get a mention during the lecture.]
Orban “Spec” Sanders (1940-41) — Temple, Oklahoma
“Spec” Sanders was a talented halfback from Temple, Oklahoma (located about 30 miles northeast of Wichita Falls) who shared a backfield at Texas with some of the best players the Longhorns had during that era, and ultimately had a more successful professional career than his collegiate one. The 1941 Texas Longhorns, the first team in program history to attain the #1 ranking in the Associated Press poll, had All-Southwest Conference pick (and future NFL and Major League Baseball player) Pete Layden at fullback, and the small but elusive All-American Jack Crain at halfback. With stars such as them in the lineup, Sanders was never a featured back, but he shone brightly enough when he did get onto the field that he was referred to at the time as UT’s “All-American substitute”.
Despite never being the biggest backfield star at Texas, Sanders was the sixth overall pick in the 1942 NFL Draft, though due to his service in the Navy during World War II he did not begin his pro football career until 1946, when he was already 27 years old. He played for three seasons with the New York Yankees of the short-lived All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and twice led that league in rushing yards and rushing touchdowns. During the 1947 season he rushed for over 1,400 yards and 18 touchdowns, and passed for another 1,400 yards.
He played his only NFL season at age 32 in 1950 with the New York Yanks (a franchise that only lasted three years and was unrelated to the AAFC’s Yankees). Playing strictly on defense that season while also handling punting duties, he recorded 13 interceptions in 12 games and was named to the Pro Bowl.
Tom Harrell (1945) — Norman, Oklahoma
Thomas Owen “Tom” Harrell was from the very heart of Sooner country, having attended high school in Norman. Due in part to the relaxed transfer rules during World War II and his service in the Navy, he had more collegiate stops than even the most restless players of today’s transfer portal era. He graduated from Norman High School at age 16 in 1940, briefly attended OU, and was an 18-year-old student at Panhandle A&M College (now Oklahoma Panhandle State University) at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. He enlisted in the Navy a few days later, and after serving in active duty in the Pacific for over two years and earning two naval battle stars, he returned stateside in 1944 and ended up attending three different colleges within one year due to his participation in the Navy’s V-12 officer training program.
Harrell was at first assigned to an engineering course at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas in the summer of 1944. He played guard on Southwestern’s football team for about half of the 1944 season, and in their third game he substituted in during a 20-0 loss to Texas on September 30. The Navy transferred him to SMU in early November of that same year, and he immediately joined the Mustang football team. In his first game in an SMU uniform, he made an appearance at guard in a 34-7 loss to Texas on November 4. He played in enough games to win letters at both Southwestern and SMU that season. Even the well-traveled former blue chip quarterback JT Daniels — who was on the losing side of games against Texas while playing for USC in 2018, West Virginia in 2022, and Rice in 2023 — never pulled off the trick of losing to Texas while at two different schools in the same season, as Tom Harrell did in 1944.
Harrell was transferred again to the University of Texas in the summer of 1945, and he played guard on the Longhorn team that fall, a position he played throughout his college career despite standing just under 5’10” and reportedly weighing about 190 pounds. In addition to playing on the line, he also served as the team’s kicker on extra point tries. Texas went 10-1 in the 1945 season and recorded wins against three different schools that Harrell had previously attended: Southwestern, Oklahoma, and SMU. Amazingly, having attended five colleges by that point, Harrell still wasn’t finished changing school addresses.
By the spring of 1946 his Navy service had ended and he enrolled at Oklahoma, where his brother Joe had won a letter playing end the previous season (Joe Harrell had also played on Southwestern’s 1944 team), and he worked out with the Sooner football team that spring and even into early September. But in mid-September of 1946, Tom Harrell left OU and enrolled at Oklahoma City University. Harrell played guard for the 1946 Oklahoma City Chiefs team that went 10-1, and he was named an honorable mention All-American guard by the United Press International (UPI). Hilariously, he was also named as an honorable mention selection on the Associated Press’s 1946 All-Big Six Conference team, despite the fact that he was not on Oklahoma’s roster or that of any other Big Six program that season. He went on to attend Western State College (now Western Colorado University) as a graduate student and played one last season of football there in 1948, by which point he was 25 years old.
He eventually ended his college studies and athletic career and went into coaching, and after coaching in Texas high schools for a few years he was a longtime assistant and head football coach at Taft Junior College in California.
Gary Moore (1964-65) — Tulsa (Nathan Hale), Oklahoma
Gary Moore was a three-sport star at Tulsa’s Nathan Hale High School who signed a letter of intent with Texas in 1963 to play football, but made it clear to the Texas coaching staff from the beginning that baseball was his favorite sport and he intended to play it as well. He was a reserve quarterback for the Longhorns on offense but primarily saw the field on defense at safety. He had the peculiar attribute of being a left-handed thrower in baseball but doing essentially everything else — including throwing a football — with his right hand.
Moore started at safety for the Longhorns for most of two seasons, and as a junior in 1965 he recorded a team-leading five interceptions. He was even better as a baseball player. He was part of the Longhorns’ pitching rotation and played in the outfield on his non-pitching days. He was one of the Southwest Conference’s best hitters, and he twice received All-SWC honors in that sport. Though he had a year of eligibility remaining, he elected to sign a baseball contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the summer of 1966, ending his college career. He spent five seasons in the Dodgers system (1967-71) and made a brief seven-game appearance at the major league level in May of 1970, but otherwise topped out at the AA level of the minor leagues.
Steve Hall (1977-80) — Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
Steve Hall was an all-state tight who signed with Texas in the 1977 recruiting class out of Broken Arrow High School. He was a four-year letterman with the Longhorns and spent his career as a backup tight end, appearing in 19 games overall (11 as a senior in 1980) and recording 6 receptions for 98 yards and one touchdown. Appropriately, the only touchdown of Hall’s Longhorn career came late in the 2nd quarter of the 1979 game against his home state Oklahoma Sooners. It was a two-yard scoring reception that gave fourth-ranked Texas a 10-7 lead over the third-ranked Sooners, and Texas would go on to win by a final score of 16-7.
Rodney Tate (1979-81) — Beggs, Oklahoma
Rodney Tate was a three-sport standout from the small town of Beggs, about 30 miles south of Tulsa. He was a key player on Beggs’s state championship basketball team as a junior in 1977, was Oklahoma’s Class A state champion in both the 100-yard and 220-yard dash, and was viewed as the state’s top running back recruit in the 1978 class. In a hard-fought recruiting battle with Oklahoma, Texas ultimately came out on top for his signature. His college career overlapped with that of A.J. “Jam” Jones, a blue-chip running back from Youngstown, Ohio who signed with Texas in the same class. Jones would lead the team in rushing yards for four consecutive seasons (1978-81) and graduate with the fourth-most rushing yards in program history up to that point.
Tate was essentially a career backup behind Jones and others, and was also hampered by injuries during three of his seasons in Austin. He finished his college career with just 940 total yards from scrimmage in four seasons, but he showed enough potential that in the 1982 NFL Draft he was picked in the fourth round, 92 spots ahead of “Jam” Jones, in fact. He played in the league for three seasons and for two teams, and was primarily used as a kick returner.
Jeff Leiding (1980-83) — Tulsa (Union), Oklahoma
Set Number: X29480 TK1
Jeff Leiding is the only All-American at Texas to have come from an Oklahoma high school, although he spent only his senior year at Tulsa’s Union High School after previously attending high school in Kansas City. He was viewed as the top prospect in Oklahoma for his grade, and signed with Texas as a member of the 1980 recruiting class. He was a three-year starter for the Longhorns at middle linebacker and was annually among their top tacklers. UT’s official statistics credit him with 289 tackles and 27 tackles for loss in his four-year career.
As a senior in 1983 he was a team captain and a key member of arguably the most dominating defense the program has ever had, as the Longhorns won their first 11 games, were ranked 2nd in the polls for most of the season, and allowed less than ten points per game. If not for a heartbreaking 10-9 loss to Georgia in the Cotton Bowl, Texas would likely have won its fourth national title that season.
Leiding was named a consensus All-American for the 1983 season and was picked in the fifth round of the 1984 NFL Draft.
Brent Johnson (1984-85) — Stillwater, Oklahoma
Brent Johnson was a highly-regarded defensive back recruit in the 1982 class, and also the son of Jimmy Johnson. Jimmy Johnson was Oklahoma State’s head football coach at the time and would later win national titles at Miami (Florida) and a pair of Super Bowls coaching the Dallas Cowboys in the early 1990s. When considering Brent’s options as a recruit, father and son agreed that he would not play either for his father or for one of OSU’s regular opponents, which ruled out his playing for any Big Eight programs. He eventually chose Texas over Stanford. He played safety at Texas and was a reserve for his first few years before being moved to linebacker as a senior in 1985, and in published depth charts from that season he was listed as the third-string weakside linebacker. He appeared in 17 games with the Longhorns over three seasons and was credited with 35 total tackles.
Paul Behrman (1987-89) — Norman, Oklahoma
Paul Behrman was a defensive back recruit who also played quarterback for Norman High School, and as a senior in 1986 he was Oklahoma’s Class 5A state champion in the 200-meter dash. He signed with Texas over offers from Stanford and Oklahoma in the 1986 recruiting class, stating that he liked UT’s academics and the city of Austin, his sister was already attending UT, and he had no desire to live in Norman for four more years.
After redshirting as a freshman, he was a backup free safety during the 1987 season, occasionally starting when the Longhorns lined up in a nickel defense for their first defensive possession. He was a starter at strong safety as a redshirt sophomore in 1988, then was moved to cornerback in 1989. He played in 27 games during his three seasons as a regular, and was credited with 140 total tackles, 2 interceptions, and 14 pass break-ups. Though he still had a year of eligibility remaining and was a two-year starter, he announced in the spring of 1990 that he would forego his final season and begin his career as a business analyst after graduating in May.
Lamel Foreman (1990) — Del City, Oklahoma
Lamel Foreman was a recruiting win for the Longhorns over the home state Sooners when he signed as a member of the 1989 recruiting class. [Note: his first name was often spelled “Lemel” while he was a UT student-athlete, but newspapers in Oklahoma almost always spelled it “Lamel”.] He was an all-state running back and the leading regular season rusher in all of Class 5A (Oklahoma’s highest classification at that time) in his junior and senior years at Del City High School. He had a family connection with UT in his uncle Clarence James, the Longhorn wide receivers coach from 1987 to 1991. In two injury-plagued seasons in Austin, Foreman appeared in nine games and recorded 39 carries for 134 yards. He became academically ineligible after the 1990 fall term, and in the spring of 1991 he left UT and enrolled at an Oklahoma junior college.
Russell Gaskamp (1996, 1998) — Weatherford, Oklahoma
Russell Gaskamp was a blue chip recruit and one of the nation’s highest-rated center prospects in the 1994 recruiting class. He was born and mostly raised in Texas, but spent the last three of his high school years in Oklahoma, and he was the starting center on Weatherford High School teams that won Oklahoma state championships in 1991 and 1992. To give you an idea of what the typical pace of the recruiting cycle was like three decades ago, consider that when Gaskamp announced his commitment to Texas in early January of 1994, barely a month before National Signing Day, he was just the third commitment in that class for the Longhorns.
He redshirted as a freshman in 1994 and was viewed by local sportswriters as the team’s center of the future, but he barely left the bench over the next three seasons. Gaskamp backed up starting center Ryan Fiebiger in 1995 and 1996, playing in one game each season according to program records. A back injury forced him to miss the 1997 season, while Fiebiger started at center for a third straight year and made the All-Big 12 third team. After Fiebiger’s graduation and his own recovery from the previous year’s back issues, Gaskamp finally broke into the Longhorn lineup as a fifth-year senior in 1998, starting at center for an offensive line that paved the way for senior running back Ricky Williams to rush for 2,124 yards and 27 touchdowns en route to a Heisman Trophy win.
Gaskamp began a coaching career after his graduation from Texas. He was the head football coach at Oklahoma Panhandle State from 2012 to 2018, then in 2019 he was hired to start the football program at NCAA Division II school Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, New Hampshire.
Adam Doiron (2000-02) and Josh Doiron (2002) — Duncan, Oklahoma
The Doiron brothers were born in Texas but spent the majority of their school years in Oklahoma, and both were standouts at Duncan High School before playing for the Texas Longhorns. Josh began his college career at Kansas State before transferring to Texas in 2000. He was a scout team player for his first two years in Austin, then he appeared in six games as a reserve tight end in 2002 and won his only letter that season.
Younger brother Adam was a star defensive lineman and four-star prospect who signed with Texas in the class of 2000. He was named The Oklahoman’s All-State Defensive Player of the Year as a senior in 1999, and as a track athlete he was an Oklahoma state champion three times in the shot put and twice in the discus.
Adam played in four games and made seven tackles as a true freshman in 2000. Over the next two seasons he appeared in 18 games with one start, making 33 tackles, seven tackles for loss, and one sack. He left school in the spring of 2003 due to academic issues, but returned to the team later that year and was a reserve defensive tackle as a senior. Team records list him as a participant in only one game of the 2003 season: UT’s loss to Washington State in the Holiday Bowl, though news reports from that time indicate that he had left the team a month earlier.
Bryan Pickryl (2002-03) — Jenks, Oklahoma
Arguably the highest-touted Oklahoma high school product ever to sign with Texas, Bryan Pickryl was a five-star defensive end prospect in the 2002 recruiting class who had been a starter on three consecutive state championship teams at Tulsa area powerhouse Jenks. Jenks head coach Allan Trimble said in 2002 that Pickryl had the most potential of any player he had coached in his first 11 years with the Jenks program, including former Oklahoma Sooner and two-time consensus All-American Rocky Calmus. Pickryl was named the 2001 All-State Defensive Player of the Year by The Oklahoman, which, in naming its superlative award winners, described Pickryl as “a gritty player who would typically suffer a dislocated shoulder once or twice a game”. In hindsight, even if the Oklahoman’s description was intended as hyperbole, it was an ominous sign for Pickryl’s career longevity.
Pickryl committed to Texas in early December of 2001, and, in a move that is common for blue chip recruits today but was rare at the time, he graduated at mid-year and enrolled at UT in the spring of 2002. He was typically reported to be 6’5”-6’6” and 225-235 pounds, but was likely much closer to 210 pounds when he arrived in Austin. Before enrolling, he had surgery to repair a torn labrum that he had suffered during the 2001 season.
He had recovered enough by the start of the 2002 season that he started at defensive end as a true freshman in the Longhorns’ season opener against North Texas, filling in until junior Kalen Thornton was ready to return from a surgery of his own. Pickryl ended up playing in 12 of UT’s 13 games in the 2002 season, starting five of them and officially compiling 30 tackles, 8 tackles for loss, and 4.5 sacks. He missed spring practices in 2003 while recovering from another shoulder surgery.
He returned and was a starter in three of the first four games of the 2003 season, recording 10 tackles, 2 tackles for loss, and one sack in that time. But he suffered another shoulder injury that required his third surgery in the span of 22 months. He took a medical redshirt for the 2003 season, left the team to focus on his recovery, and ended up never playing in another game.
Demarco Cobbs (2010, 2012, 2014) — Tulsa (Central), Oklahoma
Brendan Maloney-Imagn Images
Demarco Cobbs was a Parade All-American as a senior at Tulsa Central, and was named by several outlets as Oklahoma’s 2009 high school player of the year. He played quarterback, running back, wide receiver, and safety at different points in his high school career, and accounted for over 4,400 offensive yards and 64 total touchdowns between his junior and senior seasons. He originally committed to Tennessee, but flipped his commitment to Texas in November of his senior year, and was a top-100 national prospect when he signed with the Longhorns in February 2010.
He appeared in 12 games as a true freshman that year, primarily as a special teams player, and made five tackles on the season. As a sophomore in 2011 he missed the first half of the season while recovering from a broken arm and didn’t make his debut until October 29. He played in six games that year and was credited with four tackles, though program records do not credit him as a letterman for the 2011 season.
Cobbs was moved to linebacker for his junior season in 2012, and played in 11 games with six starts at strongside linebacker before a knee injury sidelined him for the last two games of that year (losses to TCU and Kansas State), as well as UT’s Alamo Bowl win over Oregon State. He made 35 total tackles in his 11 games played that year. He had surgery on his knee and was expected at one point to be ready for the start of the 2013 season, but he ended up sitting out that year.
He returned to the field as a fifth-year senior in 2014 and played in all 13 games as a backup linebacker during the first season of the Charlie Strong era. He recorded his only career interception during the 4th quarter of UT’s season-opener against North Texas, and returned it 28 yards for a touchdown. He finished the season with 26 total tackles.
Josh Turner (2011-14) — Oklahoma City (Millwood), Oklahoma
Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images
Josh Turner was the state of Oklahoma’s top-rated recruit in the 2011 class, and was a national top-100 prospect according to the 247Sports Composite. He committed to Texas in the summer before his senior year at Oklahoma City Millwood, and in 2010 he helped his team to a 13-0 start before they fell by one point in the Class 2A semifinals to eventual state champion Hennessey.
He played in 12 games as a true freshman in 2011, primarily on special teams, making seven tackles for the year and returning a blocked punt for a touchdown against Iowa State. Over the next two seasons (the final two years of Mack Brown’s tenure), Turner played in 25 games with five starts at safety, and was credited with 86 total tackles, two tackles for loss, one sack, and two interceptions.
Charlie Strong took over as the Longhorns’ head coach after the 2013 season, and Josh Turner was one of several players who were dismissed from the team by Strong for various reasons in the summer of 2014. Turner was reinstated in August and re-joined the team for fall practices, but was suspended for the first two games of the 2014 season before making his debut on special teams in the third game. He played in nine games overall as a senior that year, but mostly on special teams and only sparingly on defense, as Quandre Diggs, Dylan Haines, Duke Thomas, and Mykkele Thompson were the defensive back mainstays in the starting lineup, and Adrian Colbert and Jason Hall combined for 11 starts at safety. Turner was credited with only one tackle during his senior year, and made 94 throughout his Longhorn career.
Reese Leitao (2018-20) — Jenks, Oklahoma
Reese Leitao was a member of two state championship teams while at Jenks, and different publications named him to their all-state teams at tight end and defensive end. He was recruited by college programs to play both positions, but most recruiting services evaluated him as a tight end. He was a composite three-star prospect in the class of 2017 and committed to Texas after previously committing to Nebraska.
After redshirting as a freshman in 2017, he played in 27 games over the next two seasons, but was primarily a blocker and special teams player, and recorded just one catch. He was moved to defensive end during his redshirt junior year in 2020, and was credited with 6 tackles and one tackle for loss, all from UT’s Alamo Bowl win over Colorado.
Though he still had two years of eligibility after the 2020 season (one due to the one-year waiver the NCAA gave all student-athletes for the 2020 COVID-19 season), he elected to give up football after graduating in early 2021.
Casey Thompson (2019-21) — Newcastle, Oklahoma
The Texas Longhorns will often face an opponent whose roster includes one or more players who were not recruited by the Longhorns in spite of their father or grandfather having played football at Texas. The TV broadcast teams covering Texas games seldom fail to inform viewers when these situations arise. In 2018, Texas pulled off the rare feat of reeling in a recruit whose father was not only an Oklahoma legacy but a former Sooner quarterback.
Casey Thompson is the son of Charles Thompson, who was a quarterback for Oklahoma during the late 1980s, and the brother of Kendal Thompson, a former quarterback at both Oklahoma and Utah. Casey starred at the QB position as well for three years at Southmoore High School just outside of Oklahoma City, then spent his senior year at nearby Newcastle. A four-year starter during his high school career, Casey accounted for over 12,800 offensive yards and 154 touchdowns as a high schooler. He was graded as a four-star recruit by the 247Sports Composite and was the #14 dual-threat quarterback prospect in the 2018 class.
He committed to Texas in April of 2017, transferred from Southmoore to Newcastle a few months later, and as a senior he compiled over 4,100 total yards and 45 touchdowns. He signed with Texas in the same class as Cameron Rising, a quarterback prospect from southern California. Amazingly, both of them are on a college football roster today, over six years later.
Thompson redshirted as a freshman in 2018, and played very sparingly over the next two seasons as a backup behind Sam Ehlinger. He got his first significant snaps at the end of the 2020 season, when he replaced an injured Ehlinger in the second half of the Alamo Bowl game against Colorado and proceeded to complete eight of ten passes for 170 yards and four touchdowns in a 55-23 blowout win.
After Ehlinger graduated and moved on to the NFL, Thompson battled Hudson Card (a four-star recruit in the 2020 class) for the starting QB job going into the 2021 season, UT’s first season under new head coach Steve Sarkisian. Card won the job out of fall camp, but was ineffective in the team’s first two games, and Thompson ended up starting the majority of the season, finishing that campaign with 2,113 passing yards and 24 passing touchdowns against nine interceptions, and he ran for another 157 yards and four TDs. He elected to enter the transfer portal in 2022 and ended up at Nebraska, where he started ten games that fall but also missed time due to injury.
He transferred again in 2023 and re-joined former Texas head coach Tom Herman at Florida Atlantic. A torn ACL three games into that season prematurely ended his sixth season in college football. He transferred for a third and final time in 2024 and is now a seventh-year senior at his father’s alma mater, Oklahoma, and after five games he has yet to make an appearance with the Sooners. On Saturday afternoon, he’ll be standing on the sideline opposite of 17 of his former Longhorn teammates, players from the 2021 roster who are either seniors or redshirt juniors on this year’s Texas team.
No Oklahoman has appeared on a Longhorn roster since Casey Thompson in 2021, while Oklahoma’s current roster includes 30 Texans.