Since the turn of the century and when Bob Stoops arrived on the scene to turn around a struggling Oklahoma football program wrestling with its identity, Sooner football recruiting has been among the best in the country.
Since 2000, the same year Oklahoma won its seventh and most recent national championship, Sooner recruiting classes have ranked in the top-10 nationally 16 times, according to 247Sports, and eight times in the opening decade of the new century.
We are at a point and time in the evolution of college football that the Transfer Portal has assumed an increasingly important role in the annual recruiting process and the replenishment of roster needs from one season to the next. As most college head coaches, including OU's Brent Venables, will tell you, though, high school recruiting, and the development and retention of those players, remains the focus of the most successful programs.
Oklahoma's 26 recruiting classes in the 21st century have brought some outstanding college players into the program, as evidenced by the fact that more than 125 former Sooners have been selected in the NFL Draft since the 2000 NFL Draft. This got us pondering what were the best of the best Oklahoma recruiting classes of the past quarter century.
I identified and ranked the Sooner recruiting classes we consider to be the five best of the past two and a half decades. As of the beginning of 2025 preseason training camp for all 32 NFL teams, as many 43 former Sooners were on NFL rosters (this number shrunk after the mandatory roster cutdowns to the 53-player limit), and all of these were from 21st century Oklahoma recruiting classes.
5. Oklahoma's 2019 recruiting class
The Sooners' 2019 recruiting class totaled 24 players and was ranked No. 6 in the country by the 247Sports Composite. At face value, it appeared the prospects in this class had the potential to be one of the best in OU football history. The class included four five-star recruits in QB Spencer Rattler, and a wide receiver trio of Jaden Haselwood, Theo Wease and Trejan Bridges. TE Austin Stogner, rated a four-star prospect, also was a member of the 2019 class.
The four-year record of this class at Oklahoma was a respectable 41-14, but only two players from the class were selected in the NFL Draft (Rattler and RB Rhamondre Stevenson, but Rattler was selected out of South Carolina after transferring.
What potentially could have been an all-time 21st century class ended up being a major disappointment. For one thing, the players in this class were caught up in the declining years of the Lincoln Riley coaching time at Oklahoma. But the core of the class ended up leaving the program.
Rattler was benched in favor of then-freshman Caleb Williams and transferred to South Carolina after the 2021 season. Wease transferred to Missouri, Haselwood left for Arkansas and Bridges was dismissed from the team. Stogner also transferred, joining Rattler at South Carolina for one season, but returned to OU for an underachieving 2023 season.
4. Oklahoma's 2017 recruiting class
Oklahoma's 2017 recruiting class was mostly the work of head coach Bob Stoops, but the winningest coach in Sooner football history retired ahead of the 2017 season and offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley was elevated as Stoops' replacement. The 2017 class was 28 strong and ranked No. 8 nationally.
Key players in this class included WR CeeDee Lamb, RBs Kennedy Brooks and Trey Sermon, WR Marquise "Hollywood" Brown, OL Creed Humphrey, and CBs Tre Norwood and Tre Brown. It was a highly accomplished class in terms of their college careers, but also included seven players taken in the NFL Draft.
The four-year period that covered the time most of the players in this class performed at Oklahoma produced a cumulative record of 45-8.
3. Oklahoma's 2014 recruiting class
The 2014 Sooner class included a number of familiar names of recruits who launched successful professional careers after highly successful college careers playing at OU.
Prime members of this class were RBs Joe Mixon and Samaje Perine, the latter of which holds the NCAA and Oklahoma records for the most rushing yards in a singe game with 427 in a 2014 game against Kansas. Perine is also the all-time rushing leader at OU with 4,122 yards and an average of 6.02 yards per attempt. Mixon, who was suspended from the team for the 2014 season following a misdemeanor assault charge, had a 1,000-yard rushing season his redshirt-sophomore year in 2016 and 2,027 and 17 touchdowns for his Sooner career, which was only two seasons.
Other notables members of Sooners' 14th-ranked 2014 class were TE Mark Andrews, OT Orlando Brown. TE/HB Dimitri Flowers and LB Curtis Bolton. Four members of the 2014 class were selected in the NFL Draft, led by Mixon, a second-round pick in 2017. Brown and Andrews were both third-round selections. Oklahoma was 42-11 for the four-year period beginning in 2014.
2. Oklahoma's 2010 recruiting class
The 2010 Oklahoma recruiting class was one of the school's largest ever with 29 commitments. It was also one of the Sooners' highest-ranked classes, finishing No. 5 nationally, according to the 247Sports Composite.
Some of the more prominent names from the 2014 class, which went 43-10 over the next four years and sent nine players to the NFL Draft, were S Tony Jefferson, WR Kenny Stills, QB/TE Blake Bell, RB Brennan Clay, FB/HB Trey Millard, OTs Tyrus Thompson and Daryl Williams, LB Corey Nelson and DE Geneo Grissom.
Beginning in 2015, Oklahoma won six straight Big 12 championships, which the members of the 2014 class were a big part of getting started.
1. Oklahoma's 2006 recruiting class
While Oklahoma was finishing off a lackluster 2005 season by historical OU standards, Bob Stoops and his staff were putting together the best Sooner recruiting class of the Stoops coaching era.
The 2006 class ranked ninth nationally, but ended up producing 10 NFL Draft selections, which speaks to the quality of the talent among the 27 members of this outstanding class. Oklahoma's combined record in the four seasons beginning in 2006 was 42-13, including three consecutive Big 12 titles.
The headliner in the 2006 class was QB Sam Bradford, who later became Oklahoma's fifth Heisman Trophy winner and the No. 1 overall selection in the 2010 NFL Draft. In his redshirt-sophomore season in 2008, Bradford led an Oklahoma offense that set an NCAA record for most points scored in a single season (702), which was later eclipsed by the 2019 LSU team (726). The Sooners were the first team in NCAA history that season to score 60 or more points in five straight games.
In addition to Bradford, another member of Oklahoma's 2006 class included RB DeMarco Murray, who ranks seventh in career rushing yards at OU and went on to lead the NFL in rushing and was NFL Offensive Player of the Year in 2014. Murray currently coaches OU running backs as an assistant on Venables' staff. Other notables in that class include OT Trent Williams, who in his 11th NFL season is still one of the best offensive tackles in the NFL, TE Jermaine Gresham, DT Gerald McCoy, WR Dominique Franks, and RBs Chris Brown and Allen Patrick.
Another notable member of OU's 2006 class was Sherrone Moore, current head coach of the Michigan Wolverines, who Oklahoma will host on Saturday. Moore was an offensive tackle at Oklahoma and was recruited out of Butler Community College in El Dorado, Kansas.
The big names in the 2006 class not only were major contributors during their college years at Oklahoma, but went on to be standout players at the next level.
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