In his opening statement at his signing day press conference, Brent Venables pretty quickly addressed the major storyline of the morning.

24 hours earlier, three-star QB Jett Niu didn't have an offer from the Sooners and was committed to Oklahoma State. But after earning the OU offer Tuesday afternoon, Niu put pen to paper for Oklahoma on signing day. He fills the void created in late November when four-star QB Kevin Sperry, a longtime OU commit, flipped abruptly to Florida State.

“Kind of a surprise for everybody," Venables said of Niu's addition. "We lost a quarterback that was committed for over a year and a half… Really felt like fundamentally, we needed a freshman quarterback in the room, and we were able to get Jett Niu.”

The 6-foot-2, 185-pound signal-caller hails from Lindon, Utah, and played his high school ball at Lehi High. Formerly committed to Appalachian State, Niu flipped to Oklahoma State in early September and had remained pledged to the Cowboys ever since. But that all changed on a dime when Oklahoma hired new offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle, who had previously recruited Niu at Washington State.

“He had recruited Jett for a while," Venables said of Arbuckle. "He was a guy that played a pivotal role in being able to get Jett. I think there’s a trust, knowing what [Niu] was signing up for. Once I was able to kind of bridge the gap with Jett and his family — how we do what we do, all those types of things — it was a slam dunk for both sides.”

Arbuckle's hiring has paid early dividends with the addition of Niu, and Venables reiterated his faith in the Sooners' 29-year-old offensive coordinator when pressed for details on the hiring process.

“I spent almost two months looking at the best candidates in college football," Venables explained. "You look at a lot of things, you take recommendations, you talk with people they work with… I have an appreciation for style, presentations, sequences, answers, game plans, personnel and utilizing the personnel. And a lot of little things that people don’t see. And there’s a lot of analytics that maybe support what you see or bring to light what you need to pay attention to... Ben continued to be at the top of the list. A short resume, but I look at the quality, not necessarily the quantity.”

Provided there are no portal casualties within the quarterback room, Arbuckle will be tasked with developing an Oklahoma QB group that currently consists of Niu, incumbent starter Jackson Arnold, rising sophomore Michael Hawkins, and redshirt freshman-to-be Brendan Zurbrugg. Niu is one of two Utah natives in the 2025 signing class for Oklahoma, joining four-star OL Darius Afalava.

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