Justin Harrington gets a seventh year of eligibility, will return in 2024
It isn't any particular shock, but it's now official: Justin Harrington will return to Oklahoma for one final go-round in the crimson and cream. The 6-foot-3, 215-pound defensive back has been granted a seventh year of eligibility by the NCAA after suffering a season-ending knee injury in 2023. Brent Venables announced the news in his Tuesday press conference.
Harrington had broken camp as the Sooners' starting cheetah after beating out Dasan McCullough, but a partially torn ACL ended his campaign prematurely in the Sooners' second game of the season. He'd recorded six total tackles and an interception on the year before sustaining the injury, and has appeared in 19 total games over his four years in Norman.
Harrington started his career in the junior-college ranks, as he spent the 2018 and 2019 seasons at Bakersfield College before signing with the Sooners. An injury kept him out of action for the entire 2020 campaign, and he entered the transfer portal in October of 2021 after seeing limited action in the season's first four games. Alas, Harrington was unable to attract any suitors in the portal, and it briefly seemed as if his football journey was over. But after Oklahoma hired Brent Venables, Harrington began cajoling the Sooners' new head coach to allow him to return to the team as a preferred walk-on. Venables and the staff assented, and Harrington re-joined the team midway through spring ball in April 2022. Come the fall, he appeared in all 13 games for the Sooners and recorded 23 tackles.
Expectations were high for the supremely athletic defensive back as the calendar flipped to 2023, and he made a strong impression in spring ball at the cheetah. His strong play on the practice field carried over to fall camp, and he eventually outpaced McCullough for the starting role. Shortly after Harrington's injury, Venables announced that the program would seek to obtain an eligibility waiver on Harrington's behalf. NCAA regulations permit an athlete to apply for an extra year if an injury prohibits the athlete from participating in more than 33 percent of his team's games, a threshold that Harrington easily met by virtue of his mere two appearances in 2023.
Not an OUInsider.com premium member? Sign up today to get loads of inside information on Oklahoma football, basketball and recruiting, all for just a few dollars a month. Click HERE to get started!