With the departure of Baker Mayfield and Orlando Brown, among others, OU coach Lincoln Riley knows he’s got plenty of talented players to replace.
But just as important as replacing their talent is replacing their leadership.
“We definitely lost some outstanding leaders, guys who have played in a lot of games over a lot of years and been in a lot of situations,” Riley said on a Big 12 teleconference Tuesday morning. “That'll definitely be a part of it, no question. More than we lost good players - we've got some good players we think are going to get their chances now - but the leadership is going to be a critical factor.