SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
What’s cooking in University of Oklahoma’s transfer portal?
Well, it’s nothing but good news after Hawaiians Dillion Gabriel and Jonah Laulu were served a recently cooked dinner by fellow Hawaii native and Sooners’ All-America softball star Jocelyn Alo.
Alo is already a college celebrity, when with her final season coming up, she is the second all-time home run hitter and within a few more of becoming number one. She batted .538 last season and has been with national champion Oklahoma since her freshmen year.
Which no doubt brings added acclimation to Norman for incoming Sooners Gabriel and Laulu. The latter is a University of Hawaii transfer defensive lineman and Gabriel, who arrives after three sparkling years calling the plays at University of Central Florida.
Gabriel, a 6-foot, 200-pound left-hander will have three years of eligibility remaining after throwing for 8,037 yards and 70 touchdowns. He is a big catch after last year’s Sooners’ quarterbacks Spencer Rattler and Caleb Williams announced they were headed elsewhere, Rattler to the University of South Carolina and Williams perhaps to play for departed Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley at Southern California.
New Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables offered plenty of praise for Gabriel, the former UCF Knights’ captain from Mililiani, Hawaii, who has already been assumed in command of his new locker room.
Said Venables: “Dillion jumping into the family, if you will, has been just wonderful. From a leadership standpoint, he has really grabbed the bull by the horns in regards with connecting with the whole football team here in Norman, not just the offensive side, and he has done a wonderful job of doing what you would expect a guy at that position to do — lead and lead the right way.”
At UCF, where the Knights were ranked twice in the top 25, Gabriel was coached by new Sooners’ offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby in 2019.
Enter Lebby after all of a sudden Williams and his family made the decision to jump into the transfer portal. Enter Gabriel, who Lebby first recruited to UCF.
“Gab welcomed the opportunity to make the move to Norman,” said Lebby, “and it became a huge plus for us.”
Waiting in the wings is four-star 2022 recruit Nick Evers after signing with OU on Dec. 15 and enrolling early. Now Lebby and Venables are no doubt interested in adding another quarterback to the room, but for now the two are leaning on Gabriel the experienced veteran.
“Dillion’s our guy right now,” Lebby said. “We’ve got one guy on our roster that’s thrown a college football pass, and Dillion obviously has thrown a bunch of them, and he’s thrown them really, really well. So we’re going to move forward that way and go get ready.”
Venables said he’s also happy to bring in a very good lineman like Laulu, so it’s a two-player gift from the island of Hawaii.
About Gabriel, Lebby said, “I think probably the thing that I’m most excited about is this guy knows how to operate. He knows how to walk into a building every single day, have great ownership in how he’s going to operate, how he’s going to take command of the offense and what it means to be a quarterback.
“And he’s got an incredible family, they’ll be around a ton and they’re wearing OU gear right now over on the island, so it’s a good thing.”
So after Riley relocates to USC and is replaced by former Oklahoma defensive coordinator Venables, the lack of a quality quarterback comes into the picture with Rattler and Williams leaving, until now. Yes, the Sooners are happy to fill the important position.
“Look, my job,” said Venables, “is to make sure that I have an allegiance and a loyalty to that locker room. I do what’s in the best interest of that locker room, our coaching staff, and certainly at the University of Oklahoma.”
After 10 years as an assistant coach at Clemson, Venables replaced Riley after being the leading contender for the position. He quickly said his goodbyes to Tiger land and took the next flight to Oklahoma.
All this of course is ideal Boomer Sooner news.
