Seven years, 4 schools and a full-circle ending: Why Casey Thompson ended up at Oklahoma (2024)

NORMAN, Okla. — In the second quarter of Florida Atlantic’s 2023 game against Clemson, Casey Thompson went down after a hit from defensive end Cade Denhoff. Thompson was helped off the field with a torn ACL, sidelining him for the remainder of the season.

His dad, former Oklahoma quarterback Charles Thompson, found a silver lining and suggested the setback could be a blessing in disguise. If Casey could take advantage of a medical hardship waiver and be granted a seventh season of eligibility, maybe he’d have another shot to prove himself at the college level.

“I was like, ‘Man, another year of college football?’” Casey remembers now. “Initially, I didn’t want to hear that, but as the season went on, I started to enjoy just life, and I got to reconnect with myself.”

Before the injury, FAU looked like Thompson’s final college stop. His career began in 2018 at Texas, where he redshirted as a freshman before rising to the starting role as a senior, leading the Longhorns to a 58-0 shutout in his first start and a 70-35 victory against Texas Tech the next game. But the Longhorns finished 5-7, and Quinn Ewers arrived as the program’s next big thing.

After earning his degree, Thompson transferred to Nebraska, where he spent one year as the Huskers’ starter before new coach Matt Rhule was hired and the sides mutually parted ways. All of this brought Thompson to his sixth season of college football at FAU, utilizing an extra year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thompson spent time with family and friends as he recovered from his injury. While back home in Oklahoma City watching the Bedlam rivalry game with his family, his future became clear.

“‘I’m going to OU,” Thompson told his family. “‘I’m going to get in the portal, I’m going to reach out to OU and I’m going to wait until they give an answer.’”

At first, there was hesitance. Would Thompson, who will turn 26 this fall, really want to transfer for a third time? Should he check out his options professionally instead? What kind of opportunity would he have with former five-star QB Jackson Arnold waiting in the wings for the starting job?

All of the unknowns were minimized by the one constant in Thompson’s mind.

“Every time that I transferred, I wanted to come to OU,” Thompson said. “It’s definitely all come full circle. It’s a dream come true, and I’ve wanted it to happen for a long time.”

Thompson announced his transfer to Oklahoma in early January. The winding path back to Norman includes multiple career-defining decisions, playing for Oklahoma’s rivals and a few close calls to becoming a Sooner much earlier than this.

Casey Thompson doesn’t remember his first Oklahoma football game. That’s because he was 2 years old, witnessing the Sooners beat Florida State in the Orange Bowl 13-2 to win the 2000 BCS national championship.

It was always crimson and cream in the Thompson household, and not only because the family lived 15 minutes from Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Charles played quarterback at OU from 1986 to 1988, leading the No. 2 Sooners to victory against top-ranked Nebraska as a redshirt freshman, before an arrest cut his time with the program short.

Attending OU games became a family affair. Casey best remembers game days with Adrian Peterson, Sam Bradford and DeMarco Murray as the Sooners’ stars in the 2000s. Casey’s older brother Kendal followed the family pipeline to OU football, playing quarterback in a reserve role from 2011 to 2013. Watching his brother sparked the itch in Casey.

“After that, my perspective and mindset completely changed,” Casey said. “I knew from when I was 4 or 5 that I wanted to play football, but when I was about 9 or 10 years old, it finally hit me that I’m going to do everything I can to be the best football player I can be, not only to follow in my dad and brother’s footsteps, but just because I love football.”

Casey’s high school accolades suggested he was more than ready to join the sport’s elite. Across three seasons at Southmoore High and one at Newcastle, Thompson broke state records for career passing yards (12,840) and passing touchdowns (154). He was graded as a four-star prospect in the Class of 2018, per the 247Sports Composite, and ranked in the top 15 among dual-threat QBs.

Naturally, Oklahoma jumped in the recruiting picture and offered Casey a scholarship in May 2016. There was one condition holding Casey back. He needed to know if then-offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley, who recruited him to OU, would be committed to the program for his entire career. Riley couldn’t make that commitment, Charles Thompson said.

“The derailment of the Oklahoma recruitment came because Casey wanted that commitment from Lincoln,” Charles said. “I give Lincoln credit for being honest to a young kid about that.”

Riley was promoted to Oklahoma’s head coach one year later, but Casey had already committed to Texas, a school he chose because of its proximity to home and strong football tradition.

Casey’s redshirt year was hard on him, though, and he entered the transfer portal that offseason. His parents talked him out of transferring, encouraging him to finish what he started in Austin, both on the field and off of it. After all, it looked like Casey would be in position to back up Sam Ehlinger in 2019.

“I felt like as a redshirt freshman, if you can put yourself in position to be No. 2 and have at least two years in between you and the starter, that was a very good position,” Charles said.

Three years later, Casey earned an undergraduate degree in sports management and business. He decided it was time for a fresh start, and Oklahoma was again at the top of his mind. Brent Venables was now the head coach in Norman, and the Thompsons had a good relationship with him — Venables was an assistant for the Sooners when Kendal was there. There was mutual interest in this being the time for Casey to become a Sooner. But new offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby had a relationship of his own with a transfer quarterback from UCF.

“They basically told me you could come here and we’re going to have two quarterbacks, you and Dillon Gabriel,” Thompson said. “At the time, my family and I decided it was best for me to go to Nebraska.”

Thompson started 10 games for the Huskers, missing two with injury, before transferring to FAU to reunite with his former Texas head coach Tom Herman. After his injury, Thompson entered the transfer portal again, looking for a destination where he could focus on his recovery and future in football. The time was finally right to come home.

Oklahoma’s staff called Casey after the Alamo Bowl at the end of December with the opportunity. Casey had two weeks to move out of his apartment at FAU and begin the spring semester at OU.

“The experiences that I’ve gotten to go through and just the things I’ve had the ability to see and the people I’ve gotten to meet in my life, I know for sure it wouldn’t have happened if I came straight out of high school to OU and I was here the whole time. I don’t regret anything,” he said. “It almost feels like now everything makes sense. It is more complete.”

Now Casey is back in Norman with 23 college football starts under his belt. Gabriel transferred to Oregon, and Thompson joins a young quarterback room with a presumed starter in the sophom*ore Arnold, along with redshirt juniors General Booty and Jacob Switzer and freshmen Brendan Zurbrugg and Michael Hawkins Jr.

“Every position that is in that room currently, Casey has been in that role, whether it’s in preparing as a starter, being the backup or being the third guy on the totem pole,” Charles said. “So we felt he could be a great help to the room just by his presence, his knowledge and his experience as a college quarterback.

“The focus really was not as much about going to prove again that you could start in college football, but it was about getting healthy. It was about being in a program and in a system that had the right morals.”

Thompson is still recovering from his ACL injury but is expected to be fully cleared before summer workouts begin in June. After wearing No. 11 at previous stops, he’ll wear jersey No. 16, an ode to his ties to OU (his father wore No. 1 and brother wore No. 6) while signaling the new path he created to end up here. To Casey and his family, it’s a full-circle story not many words can describe.

“I got a picture sent to me from him, we did as a family, and it shows ‘C. Thompson’ on the back of the jersey in the crimson and cream,” Charles said. “It’s been 38 years for me to have seen that. To be honest with you, that in itself explains how it felt.”

(Top photo: Sarah Phipps / The Oklahoman / USA Today Network)