Brent Venables addresses the departure of Dillon Gabriel

Dillon Gabriel has become one of the most sought after players in the transfer portal since his entry a few days ago. Now, with that decision made, Brent Venables has shared some thoughts on it from his perspective.

Venables discussed Gabriel’s decision to transfer from Oklahoma during a press conference ahead of the Alamo Bowl on Thursday. He started by making it clear that Gabriel’s choice had little to nothing to do with Jackson Arnold, the former five-star and current backup for the Sooners. However, he did say that this only affects OU so much. That’s because, one way or another, they weren’t expecting to have Gabriel back anyways.

“The only thing I would say? It didn’t have anything to do with Jackson,” said Venables. “I think Dillon had every intention to go to the NFL. In his mind? This was going to be his last season. He’s going to have a great year, put himself in a position to go chase his dreams in the NFL. He’s the best person to testify in regards to how he came to the decision to play another year collegiately.”

“Quite frankly? We did plan, again, on going into the ’24 season without Dillon Gabriel,” Venables continued. “Dillon? I think one of the things that he’ll comment about is he went through something similar at UCF with a quarterback there. He knows the uniqueness of the situation.”

Gabriel threw for over 6,800 yards on 66% completion and finished with 55 touchdowns compared to just a dozen picks over his two years at Oklahoma. He also rushed for nearly an additional 700 yards as well as 18 more scores.

That came after he spent three seasons at UCF as the starting quarterback for the Knights.

With 50 games, including 34 wins, under his belt, Gabriel will be looking for his third program. He’ll be doing so as the No. 4 QB and the No. 7 overall player available in the portal according to the On3 Industry Ranking. After the past few days, early reports suggest that Oregon and USC are the early leaders for his services.

With all that said, Venables wants it known that this was completely the decision of the redshirt senior. That’s why, moving forward, he’s going to let his quarterback handle the conversation when it comes to his decision to transfer.

“Dillon knows, certainly, he was more than welcome to stay. To continue to compete, be the quarterback at the University of Oklahoma. But that’s just what decision he came to,” said Venables.

“Like I said, he would be the best person to really go into more depth and detail about what all went into that.”