Carson Kent had an early-morning flight booked to the Rocky Mountain State, and was prepping for a few hours of sleep before heading to the airport.

“I was originally going to Colorado State at 8 a.m.,” he explained. “And then at like 11:00 at night, Brent Venables called me on my cell and told me to cancel that one and fly out to Oklahoma. So that’s exactly what I did, and then they offered me on the visit.”

Kent’s relationship with Venables and the Sooner staff is less than 48 hours old. But as the Kennesaw State transfer navigates the portal process, Oklahoma has emerged as a major contender for his commitment on the heels of his official visit to Norman.

That’s in no small part due to the parallels between Kent’s football journey and Venables’ own path to notoriety as a walk-on linebacker at Kansas State in the early nineties.

“Him and I kind of resonated in a way, just how he had to fight for a spot and basically ‘crawl on’ at Kansas State,” Kent explained. “I’m a walk-on. I walked on at Kennesaw State; that was my only walk-on opportunity coming out of high school, because I was an undersized kid. That means I was under-recruited. No one was willing to give me a shot except Kennesaw State, and I took that opportunity and ran with it. I took a PWO and redshirted my first year, and the last two years, I was able to start. Just hearing his story and knowing the history of Oklahoma walk-ons, seeing Baker [Mayfield]’s walk-on trophy in the middle of the opening hallway, it was something really cool.”