Oklahoma Coach Brent Venables Confirms WR's Injury

Jayden Gibson went down in practice last week with a knee injury and will miss the entire 2024 season.

Oklahoma's Jayden Gibson / SARAH PHIPPS/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK

NORMAN — Oklahoma coach Brent Venables on Tuesday confirmed the bad news: wide receiver Jayden Gibson will not play this season.

Gibson, a 6-foot-5, 197-pound junior from West Orange, FL, injured his knee on Tuesday at practice and will miss all of 2024.

“We’ve got one player that won’t be back, and we know that’s Jayden Gibson,” Venables said outside the Switzer Center after a morning practice at the OU rugby fields.

Gibson caught 15 passes for 387 yards and five touchdowns last season, averaging a mind-blowing 25.8 yards per catch. Teammates and coaches had remarked that he was having a strong preseason training camp and were anticipating another step in his career trajectory.

Instead, Gibson will redshirt this season and try to regroup in the 2025 offseason as the Sooners’ stacked wideout corps moves on without him.

“You hate that for anybody, the season comes to an end prematurely,” Venables said. “But that’s a group that we feel really good about who’s in that group.”

“Other than that, everybody (has) just the normal bumps and bruises,” Venables said.

Venables has been pleased with the way Emmett Jones’ wide receiver room as a group has performed during the offseason and into camp. If there’s one position on the team that can withstand the loss of a budding star, it’s receiver. 

“You know the guys who have stepped up — Nic (Anderson) and Jalil (Farooq), Deion Burks, JJ Hester, I think Ivan Carreon and Jaquaize Pettaway as well as Zion Kearney. … And we really like Zion Ragins, what he’s shown, particularly early in camp. KJ Daniels did some good things. Those two guys are really, really fast and they get to full speed in a hurry.

“They all complement each other. The receiver group is a group of guys that, a lot of them (have) played a lot of football, and have been really successful. So we do have some good depth there.”

Gibson signed with the Sooners after flipping from Florida. He chose OU over Auburn, Florida State, Georgia, Miami and others after amassing more than 1,600 yards and 22 touchdowns during his final two seasons at West Orange High School.

As a true freshman, Gibson played in nine games, including five of the last six, and made just one catch for 12 yards.

Last year, however, he played in all 13 games and was a regular contributor of big plays, with 199 of his 375 receiving yards coming in the Sooners’ final four games. 

“He's really stepped up vocally,” Anderson said earlier in camp, “and physically, he's gotten a lot bigger, gotten a lot faster, stronger. And vocally, he's been more of a leader to the young guys, and really bringing up everybody around him as well.”

Gibson surpassed at least 50 yards four times, including 76 yards and a 59-yard TD on just two catches against TCU, a season-high 82 yards and a 55-yard TD on two catches at BYU, 38 yards on two catches against West Virginia, 50 yards on two catches and a TD against Iowa State, and 54 yards and his first career TD against Arkansas State. 

His touchdown against TCU featured an acrobatic catch in traffic, a burst of speed toward the end zone and the strength to drag a defender across the goal line.

“It’s just a football play. My team needed me” Gibson said afterward. “I feel like that was really big, a really cool moment.”