Oklahoma University football program is not hurting for quarterbacks

By Arnie Leshin 

Caleb Williams and Spencer Rattler, have fun at Southern California and South Carolina, respectively, for your former team is still loading up with quality replacements.

First came Dilon Gabriel, a transfer from Central Florida where he came away with several stellar seasons with his arm, his legs, and his savvy. He has already been entrenched as the Sooners starter as he’s been taking most of the reps for both teams in the spring games.

“Very happy here,” Gabriel said, “we’ve got some good receivers, some good running backs, and a strong offensive line with experience and size.”

So Gabriel, now meet General Booty. General Booty really? Well, he maybe be a name, but not much of anything else regarding him.

Except, he’s been welcomed by Oklahoma for what he can bring to the offense. He’s 6-foot-3, 195 pounds, and has played junior college ball, where at Tyler JC in Texas, he’s put together some attractive, impressive numbers, as in piling up 3,115 yards to go with 25 touchdowns. He has a strong arm, has the legs to run the option, and is simply overjoyed to come to Norman.

Against Navarro JC last season, he pieced together 528 yards threw the air for eight touchdowns and ran for 62 yards on eight carries.

“I know my given name is an attention-grabber,” he said, “and people like to put in on headlines, but I would like to show people what I can do on the field, and can back it up as I’ve been doing.”

He added that he’s already accomplished this, and will continue now to pass on his athletic skills and to have his name remembered. Last season, he was considered the No. 1 quarterback in the junior college world.

His family image is that his given name stems from his fascination with the military. He has always drawn attention because of this, but he says he’s patriotic and proud of it.

He has a family well attached to sports. His father, Forim, was a wide receiver at LSU, his uncle Jonas played quarterback at LSU and also played Major League Baseball, his uncle David was a quarterback at USC in the Pete Carroll era.

He attended four different high schools as his family traveled quite a bit, two in California and two in Texas. He graduated from Allen High in the Dallas area, was not heavily recruited, so he decided to sign on at Tyler, a quality junior college
football program.

He and Gabriel are also joined by former University of Pittsburgh quarterback Davis Beville, who has transferred to Sooner land after starting for Pitt in 2019. Then there’s recruited quarterback Nick Evans, not a high recruit but was new Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables initial contact and considered a player on the rise.

That’s that, four new quarterbacks on the roster and one new head coach who was a former assistant coach at Oklahoma under Bob Stoops.

Williams now takes his gamesmanship to the west coast to play under hastily departed former head OU coach Lincoln Riley, Rattler his skills to the south, and yet all’s fine in Norman. It will still fill every seat at its stadium, still get the headlines, and still spell out O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A and shout Boomer Sooner.