Oklahoma Football: Sooners Get Bad Rap for Dearth of Texas Recruits
By Chip Rouse
The 2016 Oklahoma football recruiting class numbers 20 prospects, including one five-star-rated linebacker and eight four-star recruits.
Rivals.com ranked the Sooners’ incoming class 21st among FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) schools. That may seem for a low ranking for a school with the football tradition and success record that precedes the University of Oklahoma. But a month before National Signing Day earlier this month, the Sooners’ recruiting effort was ranked in the low end of the top 50.
Head coach Bob Stoops says he is very pleased with the 2016 recruiting class. “I love this class,” he said. “We really are meeting our needs everywhere. Looking at my offensive and defensive master sheet, we’re right on target of where we need to be.”
The OU head coach also acknowledged that the class is a strong one academically, “and to me that matters along with size and speed and all of that.,” Stoops said.
A characteristic of the 2016 Sooner class that is becoming more common under Stoops is the broad geographic reach. Not surprisingly, the highest number of recruits in the class come from Texas. But this year instead of numbers in the double digits from Oklahoma and the neighboring Lone Star State, the number is three from Texas and just two from the home state of Oklahoma.
That figure caught the analytical attention of the editors of USA Today’s Sports Weekly, and not in a positive way. An article in the Sports Weekly edition for the week of Feb. 10-17, analyzed the quality of this year’s recruiting classes, breaking things down by the teams considered to be winners on the recruiting trail for the coming season and those who fall into the other extreme.
Oklahoma’s 2016 class was one of those cited as “losers” in this year’s recruiting wars. The reason: too few recruits signed from the rich recruiting hotbed of Texas.
It’s true that OU signed only three players from Texas to its 2016 football recruiting class – a wide receiver, an athlete and a defensive end. That’s because the Sooners brought in recruits from California (3), Louisiana (2), as well as players from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, Illinois and Washington, D.C.
The Sports Weekly analysis pointed out that Oklahoma’s successful football history was built on a foundation of being able to recruit an outstanding crop of players every season from one of the country’s most fertile grounds for football talent. The implication, therefore, is that by seemingly taking Sooner football recruiting in a different direction and taking the program away from its roots could be another contributor to why OU football has struggled in recent years in beating some the nation’s best teams in big games.
To suggest such a thing is an unfair criticism, not to mention fully unfounded. The last time I checked the state of Texas is not the only place that has outstanding high school football talent. California is an equally rich recruiting area, as are the states of Louisiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
It also should be pointed out that it is becoming increasingly more difficult to recruit football prospects from Texas because of Texas A&M’s recent affiliation with the powerhouse Southeastern Conference, as well as well as all the recent success enjoyed by TCU, Baylor and Houston.
It isn’t your grandfather’s Texas anymore when it comes to football recruiting. No longer do the University of Texas, Texas A&M and the University of Oklahoma get the pick of the litter. Other schools have become just as enticing and are offering similar features and benefits to Texas high school prospects looking to play at the next level and stay close to home.
The ability to expand recruiting efforts to both coasts and bring in top prospects from outside of your immediate geographical area is the mark of a program with an highly recognizable brand identity and long-running record of sustained success.
To downgrade Oklahoma’s recruiting standing on the subjective basis that fewer players from Texas were signed than in the past and instead replaced by players from other parts of the country with equally if not more talented prospects is totally irresponsible and an invalid evaluation, in my opinion.
Any way you look at it, Oklahoma’s 2016 recruiting class may not be a top-10- ranked class, or one of the “winners” as determined by the college football writers at Sports Weekly, but it certainly shouldn’t be categorized as one of the “losers” either.