Sooners promising freshman defender is set to transfer out when the portal opens Jan. 2
Marcus Wimberly was a top 200 player in the recruiting ranks for the Sooners 2025 class.
The NCAA transfer portal officially opens on Jan. 2. It closes on Jan. 16. However, players are already being reported as expected to enter the portal, and some Oklahoma Sooners are among them. Now, one more is in freshman safety Marcus Wimberly.
Wimberly will retain his redshirt status for 2026, as he didn’t appear in a game at all, recovering from an injury. However, nothing against Wimberly, but he likely wouldn’t have played much if he were healthy. Robert Spears-Jennings, Peyton Bowen, Jaydan Hardy, Kendal Daniels, and Michael Boganowski all split snaps between the strong safety, free safety, and cheetah spots.
Wimberly is likely making this move with the idea that he could play somewhere in 2026.
Sooners already have replacements ready for Wimberly in 2026
Hardy, Bowen, and Boganowski will all likely be back next season, and even possibly a year or two after that. The Sooners still have freshman Omarion Robinson on the roster, too, who played some special teams snaps this season. Whether he transfers out or not is still to be seen.
Those guys alone will all be replacements for Wimberly’s absence, and all would have likely played above him in 2026. Then, for the 2026 class, the Sooners have two safeties coming in that they really, really like in Markel Ford and Niko Jandreau.
Ford and Jandreau are two of the best three-star players in the 2026 class; there are two guys you could make a case that should be ranked higher. But the Sooners don’t look at star ratings; they look at tape.
They like what both guys bring physically, and think both guys could play a legitimate role in 2026, whether that’s special teams or in other ways. Ford is a player that Venables made sure to point out during the National Signing Day press conference, in that he hits guys like he’s trying to take their souls. That sounds like a safety Sooners fans will love.
Wimberly could likely be headed to play against the Sooners in a year or so, as the Arkansas native could land with new Razorback head coach Ryan Silverfield, who recruited Wimberly when Silverfield was at Memphis. Wimberly was a top-200 player in the 2025 recruiting class and has great size at the position at 6’1, 200 pounds.
Oklahoma Sooners News
Sooners aren’t naive to the fact that one critical aspect of their team has to change this offseason
The Sooners cannot have the same issue with the run game next season.
