The Oklahoma Sooners have always overall done a great job at keeping in-state talent inside the Sooner State, but there have still been plenty of Oklahomans who got away and shined somewhere else. Those seem to sting more than any other recruit that got away.
For the most part, very few times has an in-state talent chosen to stay home but play for Oklahoma State or Tulsa instead of the Sooners. That has obviously happened with underrated guys like Steve Largent and Zaven Collins becoming stars in Tulsa. But the ones that hurt the most is when they don't represent the state at all, or even get the chance to.
Read more: Greatest discovered gem from every Oklahoma recruiting class under Brent Venables
The regret of five players leaving the Sooner State seems to linger the most at the thought of them playing at Oklahoma after the Sooners failed at keeping them home.
Greatest Oklahoma recruits the Sooners missed out on
The Sooners definitely tried to keep safety Daxton Hill in Oklahoma and were even his first FBS offer before Oklahoma State, where his brother played, and his hometown Golden Hurricane. It probably would have helped OU if it had offered his brother, future NFL running back Justice Hill, but it still wasn't enough for the Cowboys regardless.
Hill took multiple visits to Norman, but the loaded race for the top safety in the 2019 class and No. 14 prospect ended at Michigan after he also briefly pledged to Alabama. He ultimately ended up as a first-round draft pick and still plays for the Cincinnati Bengals after being First-Team All-Big Ten in 2021.
In theory, Hill during that time in Norman could have replaced Brendan "Bookie" Radley-Hiles, who is considered one of the biggest recruiting busts in OU history. Or maybe Radley-Hiles even could have at least stayed at cornerback and had a much better career to give the Sooners an elite secondary.
Josh Jacobs was going unnoticed as a scrambling quarterback at McLain High School in Tulsa before Nick Saban still managed to discovered him and get him to Alabama as a running back before the Sooners even knew what they had missed from that 2016 class. Instead, OU signed Abdul Adams as its running back from that class. Adams scored one touchdown in two years with the Sooners before heading to Syracuse.
Jacobs immediately saw the field at Bama before eventually becoming a first-round pick in 2019. He's a three-time Pro Bowler and was First-Team All-Pro in 2022 while still playing for the Green Bay Packers.
There's no doubt Jacobs would have been a difference-maker in Norman. He could have shared a backfield with Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray before heading to the NFL. That would have been unstoppable.
Two-star wide receiver Georgia Kittle ended up being All-Pro tight end George Kittle. He was so under-recruited in 2012 that the Sooners didn't even notice him to dish out an offer despite playing right down the road at Norman High School. Kittle left Norman to play at Iowa, which was his only Power Four offer.
Kittle still didn't do much at Iowa but leveled up in the NFL after going in the fifth round as one of the best tight ends in the league for nearly a decade now. That college career likely would have been even better if the Sooners saw his potential.
Tyler Lockett was obviously a great athlete at Booker T Washington High School in Tulsa, but he still wasn't getting much attention in 2011 as an undersized player at 5-foot-10 and 160 pounds who seemed to have greater potential as a cornerback than wide receiver. He never got an offer from any of the in-state programs so headed to Kansas State, where he became an All-American as an all-purpose player that was dangerous as a receiver and returner.
Lockett could have caught passes from Landry Jones in Norman and been a game-changer on special teams. In 2013, he caught 12 passes for 278 yards and three TDs in one game against the Sooners to really show what could have been.
It was a stacked group going after Chris McClellan, who was a four-star defensive lineman out of Owasso High School in 2022. He ultimately shunned his in-state Sooners for Florida before eventually transferring to Missouri. He became Second-Team All-SEC in 2025 at Mizzou before getting selected in the third round of the most recent NFL Draft.
Had McClellan been even just a year younger, you'd like to think he'd jump at the opportunity to play in Venables' defense and been yet another freak on the Sooners' elite defensive line last season. Maybe that results in David Stone transferring, but if not, there'd be no denying the best defensive front in college football would have resided in Oklahoma in 2025 all thanks mostly to homegrown talent.
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