Oklahoma football: Commitment dates nearing for several OU 2024 targets

More than half of the 2024 Oklahoma football recruiting class have pledged their commitment to the Sooners in the past 45 days, and four more could be joining the class over the next two weeks.

The 13 commitments the Sooners have so far for 2024 include eight offensive players and five defensive recruits. The Sooners are in strong position to land a couple more elite offensive skill-position prospects this coming week with expected announcements elite wide receiver Zion Ragins and four-star running back Taylor Tatum.

OU begins the week ranked 29th in the 247Sports 2024 class rankings. This may not seem like much to celebrate except that the Sooners were ranked as high as No. 53 in the rankings back in May.

Oklahoma is in a recruiting battle with reigning two-time national champion Georgia for Ragins’ commitment, which is expected to be announced on Tuesday. If you believe the three major recruiting rating services (247Sports, Rivals and On3), Ragins should land with the Sooners, but being a Georgia native, you cannot count out Georgia sneaking in at the last minute and wrestling away the talented, in-state wide receiver from OU.

The Sooners are in line later in the week to pick up a commitment from their highest-rated recruit in the 2024 class, when the No. 1 running back in the class, according to 247Sports, is expected to announce his choice of schools. The recruitment of five-star RB Taylor Tatum, who hails from Longview, Texas, is down to only two schools: Oklahoma and USC.

After attending Oklahoma big ChampU BBQ recruiting weekend in mid-June, Tatum quickly received recruiting projections favoring the Sooners from both 247Sports and On3. Before that, however, he had made a visit to USC and reportedly came away very impressed with Riley’s USC offense. Riley already has created major animosity in the Sooner Nation for bailing out on OU in 2021 and taking QB Caleb Williams, the current Heisman winner, with him.

https://twitter.com/taylortatum06/status/1678543549325869059?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1678543549325869059%7Ctwgr%5E6a0c349b1fb0e56c72b69fa72ad717a8aa678623%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsoonerswire.usatoday.com%2Flists%2Foklahoma-sooners-football-2024-recruiting-williams-nwaneri-caden-durham-taylor-tatum-nigel-smith%2F

You can only imagine what the fallout would be if Riley were to manage to steal away Tatum, who reportedly also wants to play college baseball (a la former two-sport Sooner star Kyler Murray). Tatum is scheduled to end all the suspense with a Friday announcement.

Tatum would be the second running back in the 2024 class. In late June, Oklahoma received a commitment from local three-star running back prospect Xavier Robinson from Oklahoma City, the No. 5 player in the state of Oklahoma. And the Sooners are in a fight with LSU to land consensus four-star RB Caden Durham. Durham is scheduled to announce on Aug. 25. His decision could easily be impacted by what Tatum announces later this week.

Both Tatum and Durham are rated as top-five high school running backs nationally by MaxPreps.

The recruiting spotlight shifts to elite defensive talent the last week of the month. In-state safety prospect Mykel Patterson-McDonald, the No. 6 player in Oklahoma. is a heavy favorite to commit to the Sooners on July 31.

Five-star defensive talent is not commonly associated with Oklahoma football recruiting, but head coach Brent Venables is out to change that.

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The Sooners’ 2023 class included two five-star defensive players, DE Adepoju “PJ” Adebawore and S Peyton Bowen. Adebawore is from the Kansas City area, and Oklahoma has dipped into the KC market again in an attempt to land Williams Nwaneri, a five-star defensive line prospect and rated No. 1 at that position nationally by 247Sports. Nwaneri would be the top-rated defensive recruit in OU’s 2024 class as it currently is constructed.

Nwaneri is scheduled to announce his school choice on Aug. 1. OU is the favorite to land Nwaneri, but his home-state school, Missouri, and Georgia are also in the mix. However it goes, Nwaneri appears destined to be playing in the SEC as he begins his college career.