Tables turning toward Oklahoma to land elite 2025 WR Cortez Mills

Oklahoma football recruiting activities have been gaining steam -- as they do every year at this time -- with spring practice in the rear-view mirror and schools out across the country out for the summer.

Brent Venables and staff have had back-to-back weekends hosting official visits from top prospects the Sooners are interested in. This past weekend, a dozen or so recruits were on campus, including five-star offensive tackle Michael Fasusi as well as elite 2025 wide receivers Marcus Harris and Cortez Mills.

Earlier this week. Harris, a four-star prospect from national powerhouse Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, California, announced his commitment to the Sooners over offers from major programs like Georgia, Tennessee, UCLA and Oregon. It also appears that Oklahoma made a strong impression on Mills over the weekend.

Earlier analyst projections had Mills leaning more toward Clemson, but Brandon Drumm and Parker Thune of OU Insider, a recruiting website affiliated with Rivals, have issued projections favoring Oklahoma in the recruitment of Mills, who is out of Homestead, Florida.

After losing all five starters from last season's offensive line, Oklahoma has been focusing in particular on that position group using the combination of traditional high school recruiting and the transfer portal as the talent pipeline. OU offered Fasusi in January 2023 and has been in close contact with him over that time.

The 6-foot, 5-inch, 305-pound OT recently narrowed his list of finalists down to seven schools, and the Sooners are one of the seven along with USC and Oregon, both in the Big Ten starting this coming season, and five SEC schools (Texas A&M, Georgia, Missouri, Texas and OU).

Oklahoma's 2025 recruiting class currently stands at 16 commits, including three wide receivers (Elijah Thomas, Gracen Harris and Marcus Harris). The Sooners have moved up to No. 5 in the Rivals 2025 team rankings and are 10th in the 247Sports class rankings.

College recruiting can be a fickle and frustrating business. A football recruit, for example can take a visit to one school and be wowed in the moment, then perceive things to be even better as he visits other schools down the line. So nothing is really etched in cement until the signed letter of intent makes it official.

The Sooners have an excellent track record under Venables of holding recruits to their verbal commitments. One reason for that is the OU head coach's operating philosophy that when a prospect accepts and offer and commits to the Sooners he expects him to be certain of that decision and not visit any other schools. So far, so good for Oklahoma under that approach.