Jackson Arnold's time at the University of Oklahoma appears over, and over far sooner than anyone might have imagined prior to a 2024 season that seemed to harbor such promise.

The sophomore quarterback plans to enter the transfer portal, a decision that had been anticipated for some time but never publicly acknowledged by Arnold himself. The former five-star recruit will have two years of eligibility at his next destination.

After backing up Dillon Gabriel as a true freshman in 2023, Arnold moved into the starting role to open the 2024 campaign. His first career start actually came in the Alamo Bowl at the end of the 2023 season, at which point Gabriel had already departed the program and announced his plans to transfer to Oregon. Arnold fired two touchdown passes in that Alamo Bowl tilt with Arizona, but also committed four turnovers in a 38-24 defeat. Even so, hopes were high for the native Texan heading into his sophomore campaign.

But Arnold struggled mightily in the season's early stages, and those struggles peaked in a 25-15 loss to Tennessee in the Sooners' SEC opener. He committed three first-half turnovers and was benched in favor of true freshman Michael Hawkins.

Arnold remained on the pine for the next two contests, as Hawkins drew the start in a 27-21 victory over Auburn and a 34-3 loss to Texas. But when Hawkins committed three turnovers in the first six minutes of a mid-October showdown with South Carolina, the Sooners deployed Arnold once again. He re-entered the lineup and played the remainder of an eventual 35-9 loss, and officially reclaimed his starting role the following week in a road loss to Ole Miss.

As the season wound down, the noise about Arnold's potential postseason departure proliferated, and he didn't exactly kill the buzz when asked about it.

"Regarding my future, I mean, we've got two great teams left that we gotta go against," Arnold had told reporters on Nov. 18. "I'm just taking it week by week."

Those comments came in the wake of another lackluster performance against Missouri, in which Arnold threw for just 74 yards and turned the ball over three times. That trio of turnovers included a fumble in the final seconds that Mizzou defensive end Zion Young returned for a game-winning touchdown.

Prior to the Sooners' home finale against Alabama, Brent Venables was asked about his embattled quarterback's future at Oklahoma and offered a similarly noncommittal answer.

"I don't know what the future holds," Venables remarked. "We love Jackson, and we believe in him."

It wasn't difficult to read between the lines, and the outlook didn't change even after Arnold led a remarkable 24-3 upset win over the Crimson Tide.

Arnold was the very first recruit to commit to Venables and his staff in the 2023 cycle, and he was instrumental in helping to build one of the more impressive signing classes in recent memory for Oklahoma. He had an especially significant hand in helping the Sooners to flip his high school teammate, five-star safety Peyton Bowen, from Notre Dame and later Oregon. Arnold also claimed Gatorade National Player of the Year honors in 2022 after his outstanding senior season at Denton Guyer High, and it seemed a foregone conclusion that he would be the next great signal-caller at Oklahoma.

Instead, his career is set to take an unexpected detour. There will no doubt be a hot market for Arnold's services, as Power 4 programs tend to flock to former blue-chip talents with starting experience. Moreover, Arnold's struggles throughout the 2024 campaign can easily be explained away given the Sooners' myriad of injuries at wide receiver, their lack of stability on the offensive line and the turnover on Oklahoma's offensive coaching staff.

He'll have the opportunity to rebound in similar fashion as Spencer Rattler, another former five-star signee and Oklahoma starting quarterback. Rattler lost his starting job to Caleb Williams midway through the 2021 season, then transferred to South Carolina at year's end and spent the following two years as the Gamecocks' starter. He parlayed success in Columbia into a fifth-round NFL draft selection this past April.

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