Oklahoma football: Sooners have another 5-star QB in their crosshairs
By Chip Rouse
Oklahoma football has been a landing spot for some of the best quarterbacks in college football since offensive mastermind and QB whisperer Lincoln Riley arrived in Norman, Oklahoma.
The Sooners do not have a QB commit out of the nine verbal pledges they have so far in the 2022 class, but it is still relatively early in the process. You can expect the activity and the commitments to pick up some steam, though, now that the dead period restricting in-person coach and campus visits has been lifted.
Riley and his staff are not only in the field and busily recruiting for the 2022 cycle, however. They’ve also got the sights out for 2023 and even 2024.
One of their prime targets for 2023 — not surprisingly given OU’s the newly designated claim to fame as “Quarterback U” — is five-star prospect Malachi Nelson out of Los Alamitos, California. Quite naturally, Nelson has offers already from practically every big-name college program in the country.
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Both Rivals and the 247Sports Composite rank Nelson not only as the No. 1 or 2 best quarterback available in the 2023 cycle, but in the top-four players overall.
Nelson has said he will announce his decision on July 18, but he told The Athletic this past week that he had a pretty good idea already.
“It could change in the coming weeks, but right now I have a plan in my head and we’re going to see after (some) visits in the next couple of weeks and kind of go from there,” he said to The Athletic.
He is believed to be strongly considering Oklahoma as well as USC. Could Nelson possibly decide to leave his home state and a strong recruiting push from his home-state college football power? We’ll have to stand by to learn the answer, but there are a number of college football recruiting analysts who believe he might be leaning toward the Sooners.
Nelson is well aware of what has happened at the quarterback position at Oklahoma under Riley’s leadership. Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray and Jalen Hurts all transferred in to the Oklahoma program. Mayfield and Murray won the Heisman Trophy in back-to-back years (2017 and 2018), and Hurts was the Heisman runner-up in 2019, the year LSU’s Joe Burrow won the award.
All are starting quarterbacks in the National Football League.
The current OU starting quarterback, Spencer Rattler, was recruited by Riley and the Sooners and was a member of Oklahoma’s star-studded 2019 class. In only his second year as the OU starting QB this season, Rattler is already the leading preseason candidate to win the 2021 Heisman Trophy and is projected as a first-round draft pick in the 2022 NFL Draft.
“They’re developing kids over there, and obviously I want to be in the league (NFL),” said Nelson in his interview with The Atlantic. “(Riley) told me the first time he talked to me, ‘I don’t recruit a kid unless I think they can win the Heisman. I think they can lead us to winning a national championship.’
“That was crazy to hear from him, really, just what he’s done with quarterbacks. I’m excited. We’ll see what the future holds.”
Considered a pro-style quarterback, Nelson passed for 1,513 yards and three 23 touchdown, completing almost 74 percent of his passes as a sophomore in an abbreviated California spring football season for Los Alamitos High School. He was the California Gatorade Player of the Year.
Nelson will be among a number of top Oklahoma prospects and current commitments who are expected to attend OU’s ChampU BBQ next weekend, the Sooners’ biggest recruiting event of the year.
Another top prospect the Sooners are hopeful of landing, but in the 2022 class is four-star athlete Gentry Williams from Tulsa’s Booker T. Washington High School. Williams might be one of those in attendance at the ChampU BBQ. He is the No. 36 overall player in the 2023 class, according to the 247Sports Composite. He has played quarterback, wide receiver and defensive back in high school, but OU is recruiting him as a defensive back.
It will be interesting to follow how many top commitments Oklahoma gains out of the large group that attends next weekends ChampU BBQ. That event alone has been a big factor in OU’s ability to close the sale on some of the school’s top targets in year’s past.