Oklahoma general manager Jim Nagy was on the "Locked On Sooners Podcast" during SEC Media Days and got the chance to respond to harsh criticism he's received nationwide after making comments on another podcast about the Sooners finding value while recruiting.
"I don't understand how my comment was misconstrued," Nagy said. "I didn't say we weren't recruiting five-stars. That's not what I said. I said if we see a five-star and a three-star the same, we're gonna go after the three-star because he's gonna be cheaper. How is that a bad thing? I don't get it."
OU general manager responds to criticism of new recruiting strategy
For reference, here's Nagy's full quote from "The Triple Option" podcast earlier this month:
"We're going to value just like we would in the National Football League. And that's where you find your value.
"What we saw this spring, which I think was a really good way to do it, is we graded the players on our new scale. And then when you get to OV season, is when you see where you can get value, right? Because I think what's gonna set the market for a lot of these players in terms of what they're being paid and what agents expect to be paid is the star system. I think five-stars want to get paid like five-stars.
"So when you get into the OV season, we might have the same grade on a five-star and a guy that's a three-star, and when you look at where they're taking their OVs to -- if they're going to Ohio State and Oregon and Texas and Texas A&M -- that's gonna be a certain market, right? But then if the same graded player is getting offers from some Group of Five schools, we know what direction we're probably gonna go, because you're looking for that value.
"If you look at National Football League rosters and dig back into their high school background, man, that league is littered with two- and three-star guys. So they're out there. Again, it's just, we need to identify those guys and trust our evaluation, so that's really, not to share too much of the trade secrets there, but that's really how we're gonna attack it."
It's always important to know context and read entire quotes, not just headlines and gripes on social media. However, the timing of Nagy's comment was poor because it came in the middle of the Sooners' struggles recruiting the 2026 class. OU is outside the top 20 of every major recruiting outlet's team rankings.
Nagy was correct in his defense, though. He never said OU would ignore five-star recruits. The Sooners are instead relying on their own scouting system, which is Nagy's expertise, so if they scout two players the same, then the business decision is to pursue the cheaper option.
Regardless, it's still too early to judge Nagy's new strategy. Even if the Sooners' 2026 signing class is ranked low, that's not what Nagy is concerned about. How Nagy's evaluation and plan works won't be known until these 2026 players actually start making an impact for the Sooners in the future.
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