Oklahoma football: Several Sooner top 2024 recruiting targets moving up in ratings, rankings
By Chip Rouse
Oklahoma football recruiting for 2024 has two commitments to date and should be seeing a bunch more over the next few months.
The Sooners started off relatively slow in earning commitments to their 2023 class, which ended up No. 4 in the country when all was said and done, according to both ESPN and 247Sports. The floodgates began to open up for Oklahoma in the early summer months of May, June and July. That is likely to be the case this year as well.
At least three of the Sooners’ top 2024 targets are moving up in the rankings as well.
DT David Stone has moved from No. 14 in the ESPN 300 to No. 5 and he also earned a 5th star. Stone Is No. 7 in the 247Sports 2024 recruiting rankings. The battle for Stone’s commitment is between Oklahoma and Michigan, and there are several crystal-ball projections favoring OU.
Another highly-rated defensive-line recruit that the Sooners are heavily recruiting is Williams Nwaneri out of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, in the Kansas City area. ESPN recently elevated Nwaneri to five-star status and moved him from No. 30 overall in its Top 100 all the way to No. 10. He is the No. 3 overall player in the 2024 class, according to 247Sports. Both Parker Thune and Brandon Drumm of 247Sports have crystal-ball projections for Nwaneri to land at Oklahoma.
Wide receiver Bryant Wescoe, is another top target for the Sooners in the 2024 cycle and his stock is trending upward, as well. A five-star prospect, Wescoe has jumped up over 150 spots to No. 23 in the current ESPN 300. He’s up to No. 9 in the 247Sports player rating for 2024 recruits.
Wescoe’s size (6-feet, 2 inches) and quickness and his ability to create yards after the catch make him an ideal fit in offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby’s Oklahoma offense.
Those are three of the top five-star prospects the Sooners are targeting, and the ones at this time they have the best chances of landing, but it is not the complete list, and the list of four-star prospects Oklahoma is targeting is naturally much more extensive.
At least seven of the Sooners’ top recruiting targets for 2024 appear in the top 100 of both the ESPN and 247Sports player rankings.
Among the other top OU 2024 targets to keep an eye on in the coming months are LB Sammy Brown, out of Jefferson, Georgia; Kobe Black, a CB out of Waco, Texas; WR Zion Kearney, out of Missouri City, Texas; DL Nigel Smith, from Melissa, Texas; strongside DE T.A. Cunningham, who hails from Southern California, and RB Caden Durham, out of Duncanville, Texas.
The recruiting wars in the 2024 cycle are expected to heat up again in the summer months, and Oklahoma should be right there in the mix.
As we have reminded readers in several previous posts, head coach Brent Venables does not want OU recruits to have any doubt in their decision process when they commit to the Sooners, and that includes any official visits to other suitors. That is one reason why the number of Sooner commitments are likely to lag those of other FBS programs.