If any Oklahoma fans retired at a reasonable hour on Thursday night, they're waking up Friday morning to an uncomfortable bit of news.

The Sooners are now without a quarterback commit in the 2026 cycle, as four-star Mustang (Okla.) signal-caller Jaden O'Neal has backed off a verbal pledge that had stood for nearly a full year.

All signs seemingly point to Florida State as the ultimate destination for O'Neal, and the Sooners are officially all-in on uncommitted four-star Celina (Texas) QB Bowe Bentley. An Elite11 finalist who's down to LSU and Oklahoma in his recruitment, Bentley has been a priority target for OU offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle since the early stages of calendar year 2025.

And though there are plenty of facts and plenty of narratives surrounding Oklahoma's QB recruiting efforts in the 2026 cycle, it is the facts with which this particular article is preoccupied. Many have followed the O'Neal/Bentley soap opera for months now, and many are still becoming acquainted with the dynamics of what has been quite a controversial storyline in the recruiting realm.

How did O'Neal, who moved halfway across the country from California to spend his senior year of high school in the OKC metro, go from all-in with the Sooners... to back on the open market? The short answer is that by merely pursuing Bentley, Oklahoma demonstrated a willingness to put its relationship with O'Neal (and his circle) in some jeopardy. That is factual. Yet it is also factual that OU launched its pursuit of Bentley in January with the intention of taking two quarterbacks in the 2026 cycle, which the staff viewed as a necessity given the state of the depth chart at QB. The Sooners fully intended to honor O'Neal's commitment to the program, but made it clear they would look for a second arm as well. However, at the time that O'Neal committed to former OU offensive coordinator Seth Littrell last June, he was under the impression that he would be the only QB in the Sooners' 2026 class. And there you have the rub.

If that short answer is unsatisfactory, the long answer is contained within the details of a timeline that dates back some 14 months. Let's take a look back at everything that led up to O'Neal's departure from the Oklahoma recruiting class.

April 8, 2024: O'Neal travels from his home state of California to take his first unofficial visit to OU, at which point the Sooners immediately begin to emerge as a lead contender in the race for his pledge. Shortly thereafter, O'Neal acknowledges to Rivals national recruiting director Adam Gorney that Oklahoma checks all the boxes for him.

June 13, 2024: O'Neal shows up in Norman to compete at one of the Sooners' elite camp sessions, and impresses the OU staff and onlookers alike with his powerful arm and downfield accuracy. As Oklahoma appears to be in the driver's seat with both O'Neal and fellow four-star QB Dereon Coleman, who had camped in Norman a week earlier, the primary question is whether Oklahoma will demonstrate a preference for Coleman or O'Neal at the forefront of the 2026 class. O'Neal remains in the Sooner State for several days after his camp outing, and successfully helps recruit four-star WR Marcus Harris to Oklahoma during Harris' official visit.

June 24, 2024: The O'Neal/Coleman quandary is resolved in short order, as Oklahoma accepts a verbal commitment from O'Neal and he goes public with his pledge. Coleman, who had publicly admitted that he was a heavy Oklahoma lean, is left without a seat at the table in Norman and commits to Miami the following week.

July 25, 2024: O'Neal returns to campus for Oklahoma's "Sooners Under the Stars" recruiting event, aiding the OU staff in pursuing more of his peers.

October 12, 2024: O'Neal makes the trip from California to attend the Red River Rivalry in Dallas, a game that Oklahoma loses 34-3. Offensive coordinator Seth Littrell is fired eight days later, some 24 hours after South Carolina throttles the Sooners 35-9 in Norman.

November 16, 2024: Given the uncertainty in Norman after Littrell's dismissal, O'Neal takes an unofficial visit to Colorado.

November 23, 2024: One week after his trip to Boulder, O'Neal is back in Norman to watch Oklahoma uncork a stunning beatdown upon Alabama, as the Sooners prevail 24-3 to clinch bowl eligibility and all but eliminate the Tide from playoff contention.

January 10, 2025: O'Neal attends the U.S. Navy All-American Combine in San Antonio, and tells Rivals national recruiting analyst Sam Spiegelman that he's still "really locked in" with Oklahoma. He speaks highly of Ben Arbuckle, who's just over a month on the job as Oklahoma's new offensive coordinator, but also adds that "everything's not closed yet" with regard to his recruitment.

January 24, 2025: Arbuckle extends an offer to Bentley, who's coming off a breakout junior season at Celina High that featured 63 total touchdowns. Celina went 16-0 and won a state title with Bentley at the helm, and the yet-unranked signal-caller had recently turned some heads with a strong performance in the U.S. Navy All-American Bowl.

January 28, 2025: Oklahoma picks up a commitment from four-star Bellflower (Calif.) St. John Bosco WR Daniel Odom, in part due to O'Neal's influence as a childhood friend of Odom.

February 1, 2025: A week after receiving the Oklahoma offer, Bentley makes his first unofficial visit to Norman. He's a lifelong OU fan, and early confidence starts to mount from the Oklahoma side that he could wind up in the Sooners' class.

March 6, 2025: A development that had been in the works for months finally makes its way to the public eye, as O'Neal reveals that he's moving from California to Oklahoma and will enroll at Mustang High School for his senior year. He tells OUInsider that the move "just kind of made sense" given his long-standing pledge to OU.

March 8, 2025: Bentley is back in Norman for another unofficial visit to Oklahoma, and buzz starts to favor the Sooners beyond the local sphere.

March 10, 2025: Two days after the Sooners hosted Bentley for the second time in as many months, O'Neal travels to Georgia for an unofficial visit with the Bulldogs. It marks his first visit to another program since the jaunt to Colorado some four months earlier, and provides the first real indication of some trouble in paradise.

March 22, 2025: At the Elite11 regional in Austin, O'Neal discloses to OUInsider.com that he's planning to take official visits with several other programs. He goes on to acknowledge that he feels "the communication just needs to be a little bit more" between him and Oklahoma. He specifically names Florida State, Auburn and Arizona (in addition to OU) as programs that are in line for official visits.

March 30, 2025: Bentley names Oklahoma, LSU and Georgia the three finalists for his commitment.

April 3, 2025: O'Neal takes an unofficial visit to Florida State.

April 5, 2025: O'Neal takes an unofficial visit to Auburn.

April 12, 2025: O'Neal is back in Norman for the Sooners' Crimson Combine, which the program held in lieu of a traditional spring game.

May 5, 2025: Georgia accepts a commitment from five-star QB Jared Curtis, and thus bows out of the Bentley sweepstakes.

May 15, 2025: Arbuckle conducts an in-home visit with Bentley.

May 16, 2025: With Georgia out of the picture, Bentley tells OUInsider that he's officially down to LSU and Oklahoma. He says he plans on taking official visits to both schools and making a calculated decision between the two "whenever I get that feeling."

May 19, 2025: Two developments occur on this day. First, Bentley shuffles his official visit schedule. Though he was originally planning to go to Oklahoma on June 13 and see LSU on June 20, he moves the LSU visit up to May 30 and the Oklahoma visit to June 6. The Sooners thus gain the benefit of getting the last word with Bentley.

Secondly, the Sooners send Arbuckle and three other staffers to O'Neal's house for an in-home visit. OUInsider's Brandon Drumm reports that both parties emerge from the meeting with a more positive outlook on the relationship after some "tough conversations," but with official visits looming, the entire situation remains in limbo.

May 30, 2025: O'Neal takes an official visit to Arizona on the same weekend that Bentley travels to LSU for his OV with the Tigers.

June 6, 2025: Bentley arrives in Norman for his official visit with the Sooners, with John Mateer serving as his player-host throughout the weekend. He is one of sixteen official visitors on campus in Norman, and Oklahoma lands four silent commitments by the conclusion of the weekend. Bentley, however, is not one of the four, and chooses to wait on a decision a little while longer.

June 15, 2025: O'Neal takes an official visit to Florida State, and the buzz about a potential flip begins to intensify from the FSU end.

June 19, 2025: Some 360 days after becoming the second verbal pledge of the Sooners' 2026 class, and the night before he was scheduled to arrive in Norman for his OU official visit, O'Neal announces his decommitment from Oklahoma with a lengthy social media post. In it, he acknowledges that "a lot has changed" since his original commitment to OU last June, and that he "understand[s] college football is a business." He concludes the statement by declaring that he'll take his talent "where it is wanted, appreciated and needed most."

Finally, in the immediate aftermath of O'Neal's announcement, Eli Lederman of ESPN reports that Oklahoma is making a strong push to get Bentley back on campus for the Sooners' ChampU BBQ, which kicks off on June 20.

For O'Neal, it looks for all the world as though Florida State will be the destination. It would mark the second straight year that the Seminoles have flipped a longtime Oklahoma quarterback commit, as they did so in the 2025 cycle with four-star signal-caller Kevin Sperry. And coincidentally, there's another parallel between Sperry and O'Neal, as Sperry had also moved from out of state to live and play in the OKC area at one point. He spent his junior year of high school at Carl Albert High in Midwest City (Okla.) after relocating from Texas.

On Oklahoma's end, landing Bentley now becomes absolutely paramount. The blue-chipper from suburban DFW is the only 2026 quarterback that Arbuckle has offered and recruited to this point, so with O'Neal officially out of the picture, the Sooners officially have all of their eggs in the Bentley basket. If indeed he returns to campus for the ChampU BBQ weekend, that would seem to be a reliable indicator that things are trending in the right direction, but Bentley has kept things very close to the vest in recent days. He's betrayed very little with regard to his intentions, even when faced with a slew of questions from the media contingent at the 2025 Elite11 finals this week.

Oklahoma currently holds nine commits in the 2026 cycle; the Sooners briefly peaked at eleven verbals, but have since lost the commitments of O'Neal and three-star OL Will Conroy.

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