Oklahoma football: One day and counting for OU’s 2023 early signees

Less than 24 hours from now Brent Venables and the Oklahoma football program hope to sign and welcome 23 or more new roster additions as members of its 2023 recruiting class.

Early signing period for 2023 college football recruits opens Wednesday, culminating an active recruiting cycle for major programs like Oklahoma that have been targeting and building relationships with these incoming freshman recruiting prospects for up to a year and sometimes more.

The Sooners have 23 verbal commitments in their 2023 class, and most, if not all, of those prospects are expected to sign letters of intent on Wednesday, formalizing and solidifying their pledge to play for Oklahoma.

As always, on early signing day there will be surprises, with players flipping their commitment from one school to another and also public announcements by previously uncommitted prospects who have narrowed their decision list to just a few schools. The Sooners are one of the programs hoping to cash in on one or more of those Wednesday announcements.

OU one of 10 FBS teams with as many as two 5-star recruits

Oklahoma’s current 23-member class is comprised of two five-star prospects (QB Jackson Arnold and edge rusher Adepoju Adebawore), 13 four-star recruits and features a good mix of offensive and defensive players plus three considered as athletes in reference to their versatility.

The position breakdown of the class as presently constructed is also an impressive mix. The group consists of one quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, four offensive linemen, two defensive linemen, two edge rushers, three linebackers, two cornerbacks, two safeties and three athletes.

Oklahoma also has the opportunity to add depth and fill out other positional needs through the transfer portal. The Sooners have already acquired three players for 2023 through the portal: TE Austin Stogner, a former OU recruit, who is transferring back after a season at South Carolina; DL Jacob Lacey, who is transferring from Notre Dame; and LB Dasan McCullough, a former four-star recruit, who played this season at Indiana (his brother Daeh, a safety, is one of the Sooners’ 23 commitments for 2023).

If the class holds together, as it is expected to, the defensive recruits in particular represent the best class of defensive players Oklahoma has signed in quite some time. And it has a good chance of getting even better if the Sooners can land a couple of highly touted recruits who have been widely linked to OU by crystal ball predictions from a handful of national recruiting experts.

A couple of late game-changers?

The two major 2023 recruits that everybody in Sooner Nation will be closely watching with interest on Wednesday are Peyton Bowen, a five-star safety who has been committed to Notre Dame since January 2022, and Tausili Akana, a four-star linebacker who has been heavily recruited by Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma.

Both players are widely expected to end up as part of Oklahoma’s 2023 class, either on Wednesday or sometime shortly thereafter. That would require Bowen to decommit from Notre Dame, which he has not done to this point.

There is much less of a probability that there will be any other surprises on Wednesday insofar as additions to the Sooners’ 2023 class. For the past couple of months, it had been rumored that OU might have a shot at flipping five-star defensive lineman David Hicks Jr. from his Texas A&M commitment and possibly picking up four-star athlete Micah Tease, who decommitted from Arkansas on Monday. That does not appear likely now.

Oklahoma’s 2023 recruiting class is currently ranked No. 7 by 247Sports and No. 9 by Rivals. The additions of Bowen and Akana, however, could jump the Sooners up as high as a top-five class, which would be a monumental achievement by Venables and the OU coaching staff, especially given the distractions and confounding implications of a disappointing football season.

Some would argue that the true Venables era of Oklahoma football begins with this recruiting class.

Lights, camera, action!!