Dillon Gabriel explains his relationship with Oklahoma wide receivers for Bob Stoops

Oklahoma quarterback Dillon Gabriel put on his Superman cape this past Saturday to help the Sooners defeat rival Texas 34-30 in one of the most memorable Red River Rivalry games in recent history. But he couldn’t do so without the help of his wide receivers.

Gabriel helped cement his legacy at Oklahoma through his performance last Saturday, and he recently had a conversation with someone who’s done the same in Norman, former Sooners head coach Bob Stoops. In that conversation, Stoops asked Gabriel about his relationship with his wide receivers and their great connection on and off the field.

“As a whole, I’d say I always bring up how do you expect a person to trust you on the field if they can’t trust you off the field or even have a relationship with you off the field? I’m a big believer in that, just who I am as a person,” Gabriel said. “I see these guys every day, I want to have a bunch of fun and push one another but also be able to have that connection off the field. So I think that as a group has been why we’ve been so close.”

Gabriel’s chemistry off the field with his wideouts has directly resulted in success on the field for Oklahoma’s offense, as the 6-0 Sooners have leaned heavily on their passing game leading the Big 12 in yards per game through the air with 341.2 halfway through the season.

But Gabriel particularly has a strong connection with Coach Stoops’ son Drake Stoops, who hasn’t just developed into a reliable target for Gabriel on the field with four catches and 55 yards versus Texas, but a reliable friend as well.

“But particularly with Drake, you know I tell everyone, just our sense of humor, things we believe in, or just things we can conversate about. I think we’re just very similar in a lot of ways and I’ve had a lot of great receivers in the past,”Gabriel said. “But having someone you trust, love, and can look to and things may be even, or things on the field, one side may tell you to play another. For me I always have that safe haven of being able to look to Drake and just know exactly what he’s going to do.”

Stoops and Gabriel are members of the 2018 and 2019 recruiting class, making this their seventh and sixth years of playing at the collegiate level, leading to Coach Stoops asking if they’re the two old souls of the locker room.

“We definitely are, we laugh about being the older guys on the team,” Gabriel said. “Obviously coming in way earlier than these younger guys, but being able to be that experience for them as well is definitely I think helped them.”

Oklahoma’s combination of youth and experience has served them well this season, and there’s no question that their passing attack led by Gabriel and his arsenal of weapons on the outside has done so too, exceeding expectations as they enter their bye week undefeated and in the driver seat in the Big 12.